Scooter Rolls Into a Political Tempest

When inventor Dean Kamen rolled out his much anticipated two-wheeled creation dubbed the Segway Human Transporter late last year, he predicted the device could be the answer to urban ills from pollution to traffic congestion.

The electrically powered vehicle, which resembles a rotary lawnmower, moves at speeds of up to 12.5 mph, and Kamen hoped it would replace the car as the vehicle of choice for short trips of less than five miles.

What Kamen failed to foresee was how some people in San Francisco -- a city known for walkers -- would react to the idea of sharing their sidewalks.

“I don’t care if it’s gyroscopes or what it is,” Jeanne Lynch said of the technology that enables the vehicle to move almost as a seamless extension of the human body. “You just get some clown on their Segway to speed it up and the people on our sidewalks are going to be victims.”

Lynch, 73, is a member of Senior Action Network, a group that represents 25,000 seniors in San Francisco and lobbied to keep Segways off the city’s sidewalks. Seniors and disabled people in particular, Lynch said, are afraid of being knocked over by the virtually silent vehicle.

Their efforts were successful. On Nov. 25, San Francisco became the first municipality in the nation to impose a ban on the vehicles when city supervisors voted 8 to 2 to keep them off sidewalks, out of public transit stations, and off buses and trains. They are allowed on city streets.

But the fight isn’t over yet. Mayor Willie Brown has said he intends to veto the ordinance, and a new state law permitting Segways on sidewalks means that each city and town in California can decide how to regulate the vehicles.

Although it was introduced late last year, consumer models just went on sale in November on Amazon.com for $4,950, with an expected delivery date of March. So far, 32 states have enacted legislation allowing Segways on streets and sidewalks, but none has passed an outright ban.

In September, Gov. Gray Davis signed legislation classifying Segways as “electric personal assistive mobility devices,” thus allowing them on sidewalks throughout the state.

Almost as soon as Davis signed the bill, San Francisco Supervisor Chris Daly, with encouragement from Senior Action Network and walking and bicycling enthusiasts, introduced the anti-Segway ordinance.

Daly, who rode a Segway when a lobbyist visited his office and called the technology behind it “great,” said sidewalks in San Francisco are already too crowded. “We’re the densest city in California, we have a large disability community, and we have competition for space on our sidewalks,” Daly said.

P.J. Johnston, a spokesman for Mayor Brown, countered that a ban on the Segway is premature. “The concerns about pedestrian safety are legitimate and ought to be discussed, and perhaps the city will seek restrictions of some form,” Johnston said. “But banning something before it’s been tested or put into play is poor public policy, to say the least.”

Technology and business advocates have called the ban shortsighted and bad for business.

“The Segway can hopefully improve mobility and decrease congestion,” said Steven Gottlieb, a spokesman for the Bay Area Committee, a public policy organization for 250 chief executives. “The Board of Supervisors is a little out of sync with innovation.”

Matt Dalida, director of state government affairs for New Hampshire-based Segway LLC, said the company was hoping that technology-savvy San Franciscans would be among the company’s first customers.

“Obviously, we’re disappointed. The action is premature,” he said.

Citing more than 50,000 hours of tests conducted on the sidewalks of various cities -- including Boston, Chicago, Seattle and a trial run by the U.S. Postal Service in San Francisco -- without a pedestrian injured, Dalida said that supervisors and pedestrian advocates overreacted.

Bruce Livingston, executive director of Senior Action Network, dismissed those safety claims. “A new form of pedestrian injury will take place,” he said, “and it will be called ‘pedestrian injury by Segway.’ ”