It is impossible to find a photo of José Luis Martínez-Almeida on a scooter in the municipal archives. The mayor, who is fond of being photographed on municipal bicycles, has always avoided an image next to a controversial means of transport in his city, due to the many inconveniences it causes to pedestrians.
Despite this, until today, Thursday, he defended that these devices could coexist with the people of Madrid. He and his Mobility team were convinced that technological improvements would allow the companies that rented them on the streets of Madrid to solve the problems. And they have made their commitment clear in numerous public statements.
This is why the decision to definitively ban scooter rentals in Madrid has come as a surprise, especially because just over a year ago, the mayor spoke out categorically against this ban, following the referendum organized by the city of Paris, which ultimately banned these devices from the city of the Seine forever.
“I do not agree that the solution is to ban, as the left usually does,” the mayor responded to journalists, who asked him if Madrid could organize a consultation similar to that of the socialist Anne Hidalgo.
“I think the problem is not to prohibit. I think the issue is in order, and I think the issue is that there are different modes of mobility in the city of Madrid that must coexist with each other and with pedestrians,” Almeida added at the time.
Rental electric scooters arrived in Madrid during Manuela Carmena’s legislature, as part of a general commitment to mobility promoted without fossil fuels. At the same time, other vehicles powered by chargers have arrived, such as motorcycles or shared cars.
But the presence of scooters soon began to be criticized by the people of Madrid, due to the widespread misuse by their users (at the time they were not even included in the mobility ordinance) and the inconvenience of seeing them parked anywhere. There was even a scooter league that encouraged citizens to place them in the parking lot, although some put them directly in the trash.
Upon his arrival in Cibeles, Almeida promised to order this vehicle. He did so first by imposing tens of thousands of fines for improper parking. In 2022 alone, companies with municipal authorization to operate in Madrid received 94,927 fines from mobility agents. And in 2023, he obtained a new concession that required him to prohibit parking on narrow sidewalks using technology that – as we now know – the companies have failed to develop. “We are moving towards a more integrated, more orderly and safer model,” said the delegate for Mobility, Borja Carabante, on the day of the presentation.
In the electoral program with which he participated in the last elections, Almeida promised to continue promoting “new modes of mobility in a regulated manner, applying the mobility ordinance and especially the parking of scooters, combining the coexistence between pedestrians and users.” Today, the mayor has decided that coexistence is not possible and radically changes his mind compared to the time when he assured that “the question is not to prohibit.”
