They are here to stay — for now.

Metro Council voted Tuesday night to allow electric scooters to stay in Nashville until a selection process authorizes up to three companies to operate in the city. The Metro bill passed with 29 votes in favor and five abstentions.

But this bill comes with changes.

Starting immediately, riders and non-riders alike can expect to see 50% fewer scooters on city streets.

There will also be no scooter rides after 10 p.m. on weekdays and 11 p.m. on weekends and holidays.

Other changes include:

Capping the number of operators currently in the city.

Creating "slow zones" downtown and "no ride zones" on Metro greenways and in Metro parks, except on paved streets.

Two full-time employees per 100 scooters from each operator to more equally distribute scooters, address blocked sidewalks, respond to complaints and place scooters in Metro-provided corrals.

Requiring a 120-minute response time to all scooter parking complaints.

Requiring all operators to pay up to $10,000 for Metro to put up signs throughout the city, as well as fund an American Disabilities Act complaint hotline that would require any ADA-related issues to be resolved in 30 minutes.

Mandating companies to provide "reasonable" helmet and other safety education activities, as well as report to Metro's Traffic Licensing Commission and Metro Council's Public Safety Committee.

These changes, Council member Anthony Davis said, will "hopefully vastly improve scooter operations here in town."

"Nobody wants to go back to the status quo," he said, asking for support for the limited stay. He pushed the legislation along with Council members Russ Pulley and Tanaka Vercher.

The seven operators currently here — Bird, Lime, Spin, Uber's Jump, Lyft, Bolt and Gotcha Mobility — will have about a month to show their commitment to making real changes to address ongoing safety concerns.

If not, Metro Council will have an option on Aug. 20 to vote for a complete and full ban with legislation by Council member Steve Glover.

"If we feel like nothing has changed," he said. "Than that will end scooters being in Nashville."

"I still think it's still a good opportunity for everybody to work diligently to try and fix this," Glover said, before voting to support the measure. "I think everyone is trying."

If council members believe that progress has been made, Nashville is expected to start the selection process for the three companies in 100 days.

Scooter woes

The more than 4,000 scooters operating in Nashville have been embraced by residents and tourists downtown, but they have also developed strong opposition from residents concerned about sidewalk safety, the ability for those with disabilities to navigate around them and rider safety.

Complaints about the scooters rolled in immediately when they first arrived in Nashville in May 2018.

Scooters are not supposed to be driven or parked on sidewalks, yet both rules were regularly broken from the beginning with riders zooming in between pedestrians and then parking in clusters in the middle of sidewalks.

City leaders have repeatedly intervened to try and regulate scooters, approving new rules as part of a pilot program in August and amping up restrictions in March.

Still, the violations persisted.

Then, in May, Nashville resident Brady Gaulke, 26, died after he veered into the path of an SUV downtown. Investigators with Nashville police said Gaulke was intoxicated and at fault in the crash.

His death intensified the debate over the scooters. His family called for a ban, saying scooters were "inherently unsafe in urban environments like Nashville."

Mayor David Briley announced he was considering a ban days after Gaulke's death and gave the companies 30 days to respond. Then, he called for scooters to be temporarily banned until a selection process.

The lone resident to show up to speak on scooters Tuesday during public comment was Lucas Leverett, who at the last council meeting shared a controversial flier with council members that depicted an older person using a mobility scooter with the phrase "may not even be here for the next election."

City leaders, he said, have created a "false dichotomy" that pins "new and old Nashville," rather than addressing scooter enforcement or infrastructure concerns.

"After decades of no outward concern for handicapped access, suddenly, many of you became mighty champions for ADA compliance two weeks ago," Leverett said Tuesday. "You repeatedly ignored road conditions that are good for cars, much less bikes for scooters."

"This is a manufactured and meticulous showdown of new and old Nashville —a convenient election year wedge between young and old, alienating future constituencies in our city. Scooters are merely an exposure of decades of weakness in Nashville's leadership."

Council member Jeremy Elrod carried the Briley's legislation in the council, but failed to get enough votes, proving council members are willing to directly oppose the mayor's wishes on the issue.

Since then, scooter companies have taken steps to work in good faith with the city, already taking many scooters off city streets.

Council member Brett Withers said he supported the legislation because he felt it was a "pretty good compromise" on a issue that his constituents in East Nashville contrast sharply on.

Infrastructure woes

Council member Freddie O'Connell, who represents the most scooter saturated district that includes downtown and Germantown, said the scooter issue has highlighted that the city needs to prioritize its work on infrastructure.

Following the last council meeting, he sent a letter to Briley asking to accelerate implementation of multimodal infrastructure and urging the administration to implement the downtown bikeways demonstration projection.

The Downtown Bike Lanes project, which originated from WalkNBike, laid out a network of recommend low-stress routes through downtown, including 3rd Avenue and Commerce as the primary routes, for bike lanes.

The project has since been delayed with concerns from business owners on impacts to loading zones, as well as overall right of way issues due to construction and work in the area.

"With our rapid growth downtown and the arrival of scooters in Nashville, the core bike lanes are more critical than ever," Walk Bike Nashville Executive Director Nora Kern said in a statement regarding the delayed project.

"Protected bike lanes are now an essential part of a modern, 21st century city and it's embarrassing that Nashville still has no protected bicycle infrastructure downtown. We hope the city will live up to its many promises to provide safe, bicycling infrastructure and move forward on these bicycle lanes without further delay."

O'Connell previously supported the mayor in a "pause" on scooters until a selection process, stating that he has "little confidence" that there will ever be any significant progress, even with the proposed emergency changes.

"But it is clear that this is overall better than the status quo," O'Connell said Tuesday night. "But that status quo will not change unless we change the infrastructure to make it."

Yihyun Jeong covers politics in Nashville for USA TODAY NETWORK - TENNESSEE. Reach her at yjeong@tennessean.com and follow her on Twitter @yihyun_jeong.