As the scooter hire company’s 27-month trial in the resort ended last week, councillors decided against creating a licensing regime to allow operators like Beam to offer a scaled-up service in Queenstown or elsewhere in the district.
At last week’s full council meeting, only councillor Lisa Guy voted against a staff recommendation to continue with the status quo, which allows Beam to keep operating with its existing parking stations on privately- owned sites.
Guy told councillors they were passing up an opportunity to get people out of cars and into active transport and public buses.
She wants micro-mobility operators like Beam to be licensed to park scooters and e-bikes at bus hubs, council facilities and other public places to create "first and last mile connections" to the bus network.
"As a regular micro-mobility user in other centres around New Zealand, the one thing that stops me using them here is they’re not where I want to access them."
In response, council strategy planning boss Tony Pickard said although the scooters had been restricted to private parking stations, the trial hadn’t generated the demand to indicate a scaled-up version, with parking in public places, would lead to significant mode shift.
The decision sets Queenstown apart from NZ’s six largest cities, including Dunedin, where micro-mobility operators are allowed to park scooters and e-bikes at authorised parking stations on public land.
A Beam spokesman tells Mountain Scene it’ll continue operating in the resort "for now" with its existing agreements with private landowners.
He won’t comment on the council’s decision, but says its customers have travelled more than 125,000km across Queenstown in the past two years - many of which would have otherwise been done in cars - saving over 25,000 kilograms of CO2 emissions.
A report for councillors says Beam has parking stations at 13 privately-owned sites - about 14% of trips have ended on public land instead, meaning more than 4000 users have copped a $5 fine.
Beam’s received 47 complaints and the council 10 during the trial, most of which relate to scooters being abandoned or left blocking footpaths.
