Twin Falls looking at regulating electric scooters

On Thursday morning, a city staff member took a stroll on an electric scooter through downtown Twin Falls, getting a feel of what it is like and how they should move forward in regulating them.

"I got on and I felt like a kid again, honestly," said Gino Loggan Villareal, owner of Kick the Canyon Scooter Rentals.

Villareal has lived in the Magic Valley his whole life. One day, he went up to Boise to rent a scooter after feeling tired of walking around.

"I saw scooters going around and I was like, 'Where can I get a scooter from? I've never seen one of those before,'" he said. "A little kid on a skateboard was like, 'All you got to do is plug in on your phone off an app and you can hop on and go', so I tried it out."

Villareal liked it so much and he wanted to bring it to Twin Falls, looking everywhere to buy them.

While many other communities do have e-scooters, Nathan Murray, the director of economic development and urban renewal with the city, said now is not exactly the time to get those type of scooter rentals they have in other communities.

"I don’t know that we’re there yet to have that many scooters concentrated to be an alternate means of transportation but we want to make it the right size for Twin Falls right now," Murray said.

However, there are parts of the city he feels like might have more demand for the scooters.

"Which is kind of tourism and recreational along certain parts of the city," he said.

For Villareal, he had never seen the Evel Knievel jump site.

"I’ve been in Twin Falls all my life, have never seen the Evel Knievel jump up close. Can you believe that?" he said. "We drove down there (on a scooter), I walked up on top of the jump, came back down and went all the way down to Shoshone Falls."

Some city departments were looking at developing policies of e-scooters, where Boise and other bigger communities have them. So the economic development department along with a few other departments wanted to check them out before putting a policy in place.

"It's kind of a gray area here... We have codes that say no motorized vehicles on our sidewalks and trails, but these, though electric, I wouldn’t call them motorized, per say, so we’re just kind of finding out what that is," he said. "Finding out what kind of speed limit we should have, how we’re going to handle the enforcement if people violate some of the speed or other laws we have."

Murray said they are having internal conversations with staff to see how they can be regulated so they are safe and also let people have fun.

"... see how well they access our sidewalks, going to see how fast they go and learn a little more about them so we can have a more informed discussion with our City Council and our administration," Murray said.

So at this time, this does not mean the city will be having scooters on the streets for anyone to access at anytime, they are just having a conversation on how to regulate them as Villareal's business is taking off in the city.

To learn more about the e-scooters, visit

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