AODA Alliance
Accessibility for Ontarians with Disabilities Act Alliance Update
United for a Barrier-Free Ontario for All People with Disabilities
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Mississauga City Council Again Drops the Ball on Protecting Vulnerable People with Disabilities and Others from the Silent Menace of Electric Scooters
March 1, 2026
SUMMARY
A February 27, 2026 City News report reveals how Mississauga City Council again dropped the ball when it comes to protecting vulnerable people with disabilities, seniors and others from the silent menace of electric scooters. Councillors rejected a motion that would have tip-toed in the direction of implementing at least some safeguards for the public. We applaud City TV for covering this story.
E-scooters are a silent menace endangering vulnerable people with disabilities, seniors and others, ridden by unlicensed, untrained, uninsured and unmonitored joy-riders on a powered motor vehicle that need not meet any safety standards.
The AODA Alliance and other disability organizations have been battling for years to get cities to ban e-scooters and to get these bans enforced. Canada’s largest city, Toronto, has twice voted to the ban, in 2021 and again in 2024. Some other cities, like Mississauga and Ottawa have permitted them, at least in some contexts. No city has effectively enforced any legal restrictions on their use, leaving pedestrians incredibly vulnerable to personal injuries or worse.
For example, on June 13, 2022, the AODA Alliance submitted a brief to Mississauga City Council on e-scooters. We only wish that City Council had taken it seriously.
Meanwhile, the Ford Government is responsible for this mess. In 2019, it opened the door for the first time to cities permitting e-scooters, responding we expect to connections with the e-scooter corporate lobbyists. The Ford Government has not taken seriously our repeated calls for effective protections for vulnerable pedestrians, such as people with disabilities and seniors.
How You Can Help
- Learn all about our years of battling to protect people with disabilities and others from e-scooters, by visiting the AODA Alliance website’s e-scooters page.
- If you live in Ottawa, Mississauga or one of the other cities where e-scooters are permitted, email or call your City Council member. Tell them to ban e-scooters.
- If you live in Toronto or another city that doesn’t allow e-scooters, email your member of the City Council. Tell them to effectively enforce the ban on e-scooters, that far too often is ignored with impunity. Write the Chief of Police. Tell them to enforce the law on e-scooters.
- Email your member of the Ontario Legislature. Tell them to protect vulnerable pedestrians like people with disabilities and seniors from the silent menace of e-scooters.
MORE DETAILS
City News February 27, 2026
‘A silent menace’: E-scooter, e-bike debate hits another GTA city
The question about what to do with electric bikes and scooters, has been facing municipalities across Ontario, for years and while a motion to ask the province for more regulation did not pass in Mississauga, it has started a discussion.
By David Zura
It’s a debate Ontario municipalities have been facing down for years, particularly in large urban centres like Toronto – what to do with e-bikes and e-scooters showing up on sidewalks, in bike lanes and on the roads, particularly as the mode of transportation becomes more popular.
That debate showed up in Mississauga on Wednesday as Coun. Dipika Damerla brought forth a motion, calling on the Ford government to regulate e-scooters and e-bikes like other motorized vehicles, specifically to look at licensing and registration.
“It’s really the wild west when it comes to bikes and scooters, and it’s time we started looking at a regulatory framework,” said Damerla, who says she’s all for e-mobility. But she has safety concerns when it comes to the mode of transportation.
While Damerla’s motion garnered the support of only one other councillor, she says it has sparked a very much-needed conversation. Coun. Stephen Dasko says he might be open to more provincial regulation in the future, but the city needs to do more work figuring out the specifics on what it wants to ask
“If her ask is going to the province and asking them to let us regulate e-bikes, and scooters, we need to know what we’re asking for, because if they say yes, and then ask us what we want that licensing to look like, we don’t have the background work done to answer those questions,” he says.
Coun. Alvin Tedjo says he’s not ready to create barriers for equipment that might have limits on where it can go, or how fast, but says he may be open to supporting more intervention from other levels of government that don’t have those built-in guardrails like the municipally-run network does, noting some e-bikes and scooters are capable of going upwards of 50 or 60 km/h.
“What the government needs to do, and this is both the federal government and the provincial government, who can create new regulations and new definitions – they need to define those vehicles as motor vehicles, like a motorcycle or something like that,” he says.
Disability rights advocate David Lepofsky says he’s all for the province becoming more involved, saying groups like his have deep concerns.
“They come at you out of nowhere, sighted people may not see them coming, blind people and sighted people can’t hear them coming because they are a silent menace, they race at all sorts of speeds, they’re ridden on the sidewalks, even when it’s prohibited, and law enforcement is asleep,” he says.
It’s worth noting that none of the councillors CityNews spoke with did not support an outright ban on e-bikes and e-scooters, acknowledging their popularity among young people.