Committee Clears Bill Letting Larger Delaware Cities Authorize Scooter-Share Programs

The House Public Safety and Homeland Security Committee voted to release HB 266, a bill sponsored by Representative Ortega that would amend Title 21 to let municipalities with populations over 30,000 choose to legalize and regulate rental electric scooter-share programs.

Representative Ortega said the measure "gives large cities in Delaware the option to legalize and regulate rental electric scooters if they want to," adding that smaller towns would remain unable to authorize rental programs unless the legislature changes the population threshold.

Javier Horstman, director of special projects in the mayor's office, said the city is looking at several vendors and expects programs similar to Lime or Uber, with some companies running the program end-to-end. "Some of the companies we're looking at would essentially run the entire program from the beginning to end, and we would basically just give them the ability to operate in the city," he told the committee.

Members asked why the bill sets a 30,000 population cutoff. One member noted that smaller municipalities such as Dewey Beach had not expressed interest previously and suggested removing the threshold to avoid returning to the legislature later if a smaller municipality wished to authorize a program. Horstman said the threshold in legislation would allow larger cities, such as Wilmington, to move forward while staff continues conversations with other municipalities.

No members of the public signed up to testify on the bill. After discussion, the committee approved a motion to release HB 266 by roll-call vote; the motion was described in the hearing as moved by Representative Romer and seconded by Representative Wilson Anton, and the clerk recorded affirmative votes. The bill was released from committee.