WestCycle rode over to the Town of Vincent offices recently and found mayor Alison Xamon in a feisty mood, refreshed from her daily ride into work on the trusty ‘Mayoral e-scooter’ she has owned since 2020.

“I actually came across e-scooters when I was in Adelaide, I hired a scooter and thought this is a really good way to get around, I really liked it,” she said.

“And so when I came back I started looking at the possibilities for scooters. I particularly wanted a scooter I could fold up and put into a vehicle and that’s what I bought – I’ve been riding it ever since.”

No sweat

Xamon said she loves the convenience her cherished, tiny-wheeled chariot offers for the mostly local trips she undertakes on it.

“I ride it mainly around Vincent. I can scooter around and not break a sweat, which is actually really quite good if you’re dressed up for a formal meeting. I don’t have to worry about end-of-trip facilities because I’m not getting hot. It’s particularly good for the inner city because, firstly, I don’t have to ever worry about parking, but secondly, it’s just very easy to get around the local roads.”

Main roads rage: Corridors of uncertainty

Great for local roads, yes, but there was still much to do on the major arteries, where there was often, “a lack of bike paths”.

“There are parts of Vincent and parts of every local council that are straight out dangerous,” the ex-Greens State Government Upper House member said. “As someone who’s advocating for bike paths I know where the problems are, and I’m pretty passionate about wanting to get that resolved.”

“I’d change all of Charles Street! All of Lord Street! Most of William Street!”

“The thing is that people don’t like it when scooters ride on footpaths. But what people don’t realise is that scooter riders hate riding on footpaths. Hate it! It’s bumpy. You’ve got bad vision. You’re navigating around pedestrians. Hate it! Blind driveways! But the reason scooter riders will ride on the pathways, is because no appropriate bike paths have been made available. Paths ideally should be for people who are walking, people who have prams, people with disability, people who are elderly.”

“So rather than just trying to kill off an entire incredibly important mode of transport, people should be putting their rage and frustration into the advocacy around appropriate bike paths, particularly in the inner city and high-density areas.”

Getting around in high-density living

Xamon, who became mayor of Vincent in October 2023, continues to push for active transport to become a greater focus for other local governments and the State Government that has jurisdiction over the bigger roads through the Department of Transport and Major Infrastructure (DTMI)/ Main Roads WA. This was especially so in high-density areas like the Town of Vincent.

“It’s just not a priority at the moment. I think the focus has been on creating paths around a lot of the new transit-oriented developments, around the new train stations. I understand that but I think that Vincent is doing the heavy lifting when it comes to meeting our density targets. We need to actually have density in our inner cities. That is where WA is going.

“If we don’t invest in the infrastructure to make sure we are doing everything possible to get people out of vehicles, and specifically having multiple vehicles per household, then that is a comprehensive failure of public policy.

“I hold a very strong view that where the investment for bike paths needs to go is in the inner city. We’ve got entire streets that have no off-street parking at all, because these were streets designed for horses, so we need to make sure that we are doing that investment in the inner city.

“It is in the interest of the State Government to be funding inner city local councils to be getting people out of cars, because that has a positive flow-on effect around issues of congestion. We’ve got more inner-city residences than the City of Perth. Look, I applaud the State Government’s initiatives around MetroNet. I know there’s been political pushback that has happened around that – I’m not part of it. I think it’s really important, I’m really looking forward to equal investment in tier two transport options, particularly buses and rail, light rail, those sorts of things.

“But I feel as though active transport and the infrastructure required for active transport has been literally left behind, and I want to see that shift. Everyone benefits. If you’re dealing with issues of congestion, rat running, those sorts of things. And I mean, it’s also safer for cyclists and people using active transport if there’s less cars that you’re competing with on the local roads.”

Speed reduction is another big focus for Xamon and the City of Vincent.

“We’re in negotiations with Main Roads to have a number of distributor roads also reduced to 40 kilometers, or at least reduced from 60 down to 50.”

Shared scheme issues

The mayor might ride a scooter to work every day, but she backed the City’s decision to follow the City of Perth and suspend its e-scooter hire scheme following a May 2025 incident that saw a pedestrian killed by a drunken tourist riding a hire e-scooter in the Perth CBD.

“It was a difficult decision but on the other hand our program was so intertwined with the City of Perth, that when they made the decision to immediately pull it, we were left with no choice other than to pull the scheme as well, because it wasn’t going to work on its own.”

Xamon said a shared scheme could re-emerge in Vincent but issues like device drop-off areas would need to be rethought. “Footpath clutter is a problem – I’m not going to pretend it’s not. My youngest son is blind. He tripped over a scooter that someone had very thoughtlessly just left lying in the street. I’m not paying for one of these companies to make a big profit at the expense of my city. No way!”

Other guardrails could include geofencing scooters out of ‘high entertainment areas’, along with time-of-day hire restrictions.

“Some of that was in place anyway; no one was able to use the scooter through Hyde Park; no one was able to use it through Britannia Reserve. We already had that. We would also look at limiting when the service is available. I can’t see any reason why you’d be getting on a hire scooter for a lark at 11 o’clock at night or at two in the morning.”

“I would hope that more people would be like me and actually trial it and decide that it’s not for them, or this is good and go and buy their own. They’re not expensive to buy, they cost about three cents to charge. So why wouldn’t you just get your own scooter?”

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