Rochester, MN Mobility & Curb Rules: Shared E-Scooter Rules (2026)

City Code § 11-11-4 governs "low power vehicle sharing," defined in § 11-11-1 as any rental or lending service that lets riders temporarily use a vehicle from a fleet for a fee and that encourages or is susceptible to vending, renting, or lending from city-maintained right-of-way or other city property. That definition sweeps in dockless motor scooters and motorized foot scooters alongside e-bikes and neighborhood electric vehicles. Subsection (a) requires a written contract or license agreement, issued by city administration with formal approval by the city council, before any company can operate a scooter-sharing fleet from public right-of-way.

Subsection (b) addresses scooters that show up without that authorization: an "unpermitted low power vehicle" can still legally be ridden into and through the city subject to state and local traffic law, but it must be attended by the same user at all times while on city-maintained right-of-way or other city property, meaning it cannot simply be left standing unattended for the next rider to find. Section 11-11-5 protects the city's control of the right-of-way by making clear that a sharing contract never transfers ownership or control of that right-of-way to the operator or any other party.

Section 11-11-3 additionally bars attaching a shared scooter to a tree, parking meter post, street light post, traffic signal post, or sign post, a restriction that applies with full force to sharing-fleet vehicles since the sidewalk-parking and bike-rack exception in that section is reserved for vehicles that are not part of a sharing operation.