Scooters on Campus: Responding to Sudden Growth in Use of New Vehicle at University of Wisconsin, Madison

The University of Wisconsin-Madison has experienced unprecedented growth in the number of scooters on its campus. Inventories indicate that about 1,000 are now parked or in operation on the campus at peak times. This relatively unique situation has generated a number of challenges, including safety concerns, a serious scarcity of parking space, conflicts with pedestrians and fire evacuation routes, mass-scale violation of state laws regarding vehicle operation, and landscape and site design issues. In 2004 the University was compelled to start implementing a plan that ultimately instituted parking permits and developed new standards for the location, design, and signing of 1,300 individually marked scooter-only parking stalls in over 50 dedicated parking lots. This paper describes and analyzes the UW’s experience within the context of a survey of moped counts and policies on 25 other colleges and universities across the nation. Survey information about the demographic characteristics and habits of moped operators on the UW Campus is also discussed. The paper argues that, along with a lack of scooter parking permits and long campus travel distances, the UW’s strong automobile parking restrictions contributed to the sudden upsurge in scooter use on campus. It concludes with the proposition that if the use of scooters continues to increase generally across the nation, institutions similar to the UW as well as certain communities will need to deal specifically and more formally with scooters, especially with respect to the availability and design of parking.