Seattle looks to corral booming e-scooter use as complaints grow
Seattle expands e-scooter corrals amid record ridership and rising safety concerns
Seattle is among the top three cities in North America for Lime scooter use, with more than 9 million rides logged this year. As ridership grows, city officials plan to add hundreds of scooter and bike corrals to address sidewalk clutter and safety concerns linked to a surge in scooter-related injuries.
SEATTLE - E-scooter ridership in Seattle continues to surge, keeping the city among the top three most popular Lime markets in North America. But the rapid growth is renewing concerns over sidewalk safety and parking clutter, prompting the Seattle Department of Transportation (SDOT) to accelerate plans for more than 200 designated "bike and scooter corrals" across the city.
The move comes after months of rising complaints from pedestrians downtown who say scooters are increasingly blocking walkways or zipping past crowds on the sidewalk.
Lime reports booming ridership — and supports more corrals
What they're saying:
Lime, which controls roughly 90% of the city’s micro-mobility market, says it’s working closely with SDOT on the expansion. Government Relations Lead Parker Dawson said the company is preparing for even more demand as Seattle approaches major events like the World Cup.
"Last year in 2024 we did something like 6.6 million rides," shared Dawson. "This year, as of a few weeks ago, we have cleared 9 million in 2025."
They tell FOX 13, usage remains high even during fall rains, with 14,000 to 15,000 riders logging tens of thousands of trips daily.
Lime says further investment in mandatory parking zones can improve safety and help riders "take ownership of good behavior." Corrals being built now use laser-painted rectangles with scooter logos, cueing riders to end their trips there.
"To invest more and accelerate an already existing program to build out a lot of parking in downtown and a lot of other high-use areas around Seattle," said Dawson.
Doug Trumm, editor of The Urbanist, believes in the concept but thinks the system isn’t yet scaled for the volume of riders.
"The bike corral, the idea of them is you get an incentive, or you’re encouraged to go park in that space that keeps the vehicles from being everywhere," said Trumm. "But the catch with that is we don’t have that many corrals, but we have a lot of bikes."
He noted Lime has said the city would ideally need around 800 corrals — four times what SDOT is currently planning — to adequately cover downtown, let alone the entire city. One of the new corrals is already visible on Occidental Avenue near the stadiums and can fit at least a dozen scooters.
Councilmember Rob Saka tried to allocate an additional $250,000 toward speeding up corral installation, but Trumm said the effort "came up short," meaning "there’s not extra money going right now."
A humorous push for scooter etiquette
The Downtown Seattle Association is taking a creative swing at improving scooter etiquette with a light-hearted but pointed awareness campaign aimed at riders weaving through crowds or speeding along sidewalks.
In a short video posted recently on social media, the association leans into humor including a bleeped reminder that there’s "a right way and a wrong way to ride a Lime scooter" to grab attention and redirect riders to the city’s protected bike lanes.
James Sido, who helped spearhead the effort, says the goal is simple: use a bit of levity and social pressure to make good behavior stick.
"I will say that since we published that video and this could be kind of wish-casting but I have seen more people using the protected bike lane on the scooter," said Sido. "I see that as a win."
Injuries continue rising alongside use
But record ridership has come with a rise in injuries. In 2024 alone, Harborview Medical Center saw 163 people injured in scooter and e-bike incidents.
"We really do want to be prioritizing safety and Lime has been working very directly to try and find solutions to this," said Dawson.
They added that Lime foot patrols are already stationed downtown and the company has distributed thousands of helmets.
Lime argues that 99.99% of its global rides end without incident.
FOX 13 has reached out to Harborview Medical Center for updated information showing how many scooter injuries were reported so far this year.
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The Source: Information in this story came from the Seattle Department of Transportation, the Downtown Seattle Association, the Urbanist, Lime, and FOX 13 Seattle reporting.