Photo by neiu20001 - Getty Images
Lime e-scooter parked on the sidewalk - Getty Images
Milwaukee is no stranger to dangerous streets and reckless driving; it is unfortunately not uncommon to see cars ripping down streets, red lights being run, broken pieces of bumpers littering intersections and makeshift street memorials for victims. While the city and county work to tackle these issues, another menace to transportation safety has emerged, but not on city streets, rather on the sidewalks bordering them.
On June 16, a Milwaukee pedestrian was struck by a Lime scooter rider on the sidewalk of the 1000 block of North Martin Luther King Drive. The pedestrian—identified as Milwaukee nightclub owner Dave Wolz—was taken to the hospital after suffering multiple broken ribs, a broken ankle and a spinal fracture. Though assuredly not the first Lime scooter crash on the sidewalk, this event has become a flashpoint for pedestrian safety as e-scooter use has become increasingly a part of city life. Following the incident, numerous news stories were run and Alderman Bob Bauman—whose district the incident occurred in—released a statement reflecting his disappointment and frustration with continuous illegal sidewalk riding of e-scooters.
Actions by the Common Council
After the incident both Bauman and Alderman Peter Burgelis (11th District) introduced measures to increase fines for sidewalk riding as a preventative and punitive measure. Bauman proposed an increase of the current maximum fine from $20 to $200 and Burgelis to $1,000. Neither of these measures, however, can be passed without also raising the fine for cycling on the sidewalk to the same level.
Additionally, the route of fines raises the question of enforcement. Currently the city has not been enforcing sidewalk riding rules and Lime, though boasting of AI technology it utilizes to help identify and discourage sidewalk riding, does not seem to be effectively enforcing it given the recent crash and scores of anecdotal evidence via resident complaints.
On top of this, when riders are fined for behavior—whether sidewalk riding or illegal parking—the city does not receive any revenue from the fines; it all goes to Lime. “Ironically, the fines that they issue, the revenue goes to [Lime], not the city,” says Bauman. “So that almost creates an incentive for sidewalk riding.”
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Bauman has also cited speed as a problem in downtown crashes. “It’s becoming increasingly apparent to me that it is impossible to prevent sidewalk riding. So if we can’t stop it and if people don’t heed warnings… Then by slowing them down you can reduce the damage they can cause.”
Thus, Bauman has come to believe that the city needs to terminate and re-negotiate its dockless scooter agreement to address the revenue concerns and limit the speed of scooters in certain, high pedestrian activity areas. And on July 13, Bauman began that process, introducing a measure to terminate and re-negotiate the city’s dockless scooter agreement. The legislation is currently in committee.
Background of Dockless Scooters in Milwaukee
The city of Milwaukee officially launched its dockless scooter program in May 2024 after three years of pilot programs. The city created a dockless scooter agreement that allowed for up to 1,000 scooters on city streets with the possibility for increasing that number if contractors met certain guidelines. The project was aimed as a way to both expand equal access to transportation in Milwaukee as well as cut down on carbon emissions of short trips.
Not only did the scooter program expand access to transportation physically, but it also did so financially. The city operates an Access pass program for eligible low-income residents and in its scooter agreement requires a 40% discount on rides that originate in scooter zones four (parts of the West and North Side) and five (South Side).
In 2025, 1,080 people were enrolled in Access passes and about 25.7% of trips received the 40% discount from starting in zones four, five and additionally zone 3 for 2025. As of June 2026, 983 residents are enrolled in access passes marking about 1.1% of the 89,157 unique riders so far and around 27.8% of trips received the 40% discount from zones four and five.
The city report on dockless scooters also boasts that 716.3 tons of CO2 were spared by scooter trips in 2025, which averaged a distance of .9 miles. Additionally, the city received just over $728,000 from device fees, trip fees and compliance fees (paid by the scooter organization, not rider).
By the metrics, the scooter program seems to be making a dent in its goals of lowering emissions and making the city accessible to all. However, the report does not take account of who is riding scooters; how many riders are joy riding teenagers or drunken college students? Or the impacts that scooters have had on pedestrian safety or sidewalk accessibility. While the incident Downtown has been the most highly publicized, there have been an array of public comments about small crashes and near misses of scooters and their effect on pedestrian safety. There also is no publicly available data on the number of crashes from scooters.
Additionally, the Department of Public Works (DPW) studied scooters usage in Milwaukee observing 83 riders and 715 parked scooters and found that 78% of people rode on the street and around 17% of scooters were improperly parked. But given the volume of over 1.2 million rides in 2025 it's questionable how useful and applicable this data is on scooter riding. Additionally, the time of day, geographic location and time of year—to name a few variables—are all important factors in how scooters are being ridden and parked. So given the small sample size and large variable set, it is difficult to apply this data to Milwaukee with any meaningful conclusions to scooter behavior in the city.
Sidewalk Riding a Symptom of a Larger Problem
While the spotlight has been on the dangers of illegal sidewalk riding of Lime scooters, it is important to examine why it is occurring. The problem seems to be a symptom of a larger problem of road safety in Milwaukee, where many people do not feel safe to ride scooters or bikes on city streets. Road safety in Milwaukee seems to be a cultural problem that the city is attempting to fix via infrastructural changes and aggressive police responses. While this can effectively stop some of the reckless road behavior, it is reactive and does not reach the root of the problem of people not respecting others or themselves on the road.
Milwaukee hit its peak in traffic fatalities in 2022 with 77, dropping to 57 in 2025. As of July 22, 2026, the city has had 24 traffic deaths. Whether this drop is attributed to traffic calming projects, police chase deterrents, pandemic era crime drops or other factors, it is promising. But the bottom line is that many city streets still remain unsafe, and tackling the problems of why people are driving so recklessly throughout the city requires much more than expensive infrastructure projects and police chases.
Moreover, without a solution to the dangerous behavior occurring in the street, how will the city be able to effectively keep scooters off the street? Bauman argues the city may have to reconsider the viability of the scooter project in Milwaukee as a whole.
“And so my argument to DPW is maybe we’re not ready for scooters. Now they’ve indicated … They've built 20 miles of protected bike lanes. And they have 35 more in the planning stages. Except the city has 300, 400 miles of arterial streets. So they’re making a dent up to this point and it's scattered.”
So while much of the buzz has been about scooter behavior in the recent incidents in Milwaukee, it seems that all roads lead back to the reckless driving underlying the sidewalk riding. Inappropriate parking, however, seems to be a whole different ball game, which generated 3,178 fines by Lime in June 2026 alone.
The city will have to tackle its problems of road safety in conjunction with the county, state, organizations and everyday residents. With scooters, the city will have to wrestle with Lime. And given the step taken to terminate and re-negotiate the city’s dockless scooter contract, change is likely coming. Hopefully the promising reduction in traffic deaths continues and re-negotiation with Lime yields positive results.
