Permits a hindrance, scooter companies say
Set scooters free. That was the message company representatives carried to the Oklahoma City Council in a public hearing Tuesday on regulating the city’s newest transportation fad.
Bird, of Santa Monica, California, and Lime, of San Mateo, California, showed up in Oklahoma City last month with dozens of “dockless” electric scooters for rent.
City officials said scooter vending required permits.
The city council passed an emergency ordinance, then introduced detailed regulations that had been in the works for some time.
Tuesday’s proceedings were a chance for the public to offer views on the service, but only Lime’s Rob Greenleaf and Bird’s Blanca Laborde spoke.
They had similar critiques.
The number of scooters being allowed is way too low and limits on the pace of growth in the scooter fleets are far too restrictive, they said.
And they said requiring permits for vending areas limits their flexibility to respond to demand.
“This particular provision gives us pause,” Laborde said. “This model is very much driven by supply and demand.”
With the “dockless” concept, each morning the companies leave their two-wheeled scooters, usually in groups of three, at sites scattered throughout the city.
They charge renters $1 to “unlock” a scooter with a smartphone app, and 15 cents per mile to ride.
Renters can pretty much leave the scooters wherever they want.
Relying on GPS technology, the companies send around “chargers” in the evening to find their scooters, pick them up, and plug them in overnight.
Ward 2 Councilman Ed Shadid said he and his children encountered scooters on a Labor Day weekend visit to Austin, Texas, where he said Lime appeared to dominate the market.
Shadid, a physician, said the scene resembled a free-for-all, with no safety helmets in evidence, near-misses with pedestrians on sidewalks, and no apparent age limits for driving.
Personal-injury lawyers are advertising for clients who’ve been hurt in scooter accidents, he said. “The safety component, we’re not there,” Shadid said.
In the interest of safety, Greenleaf said, Lime limits its scooters to a top speed of 15 mph in daylight and 10 mph after dark in Oklahoma City.
The proposed regulations would require a $302 annual license and a $30 annual per-vehicle fee.
A $50 permit would be required for each vending area — Bird calls them “nests” — and vending locations would berestricted, for instance, never allowed within 10 feet of an intersection.
Fleets would be restricted to 250 vehicles, with the ability to add 25 at a time upon a showing of sufficient demand. Greenleaf suggested adding 100 at a time would be more like it.
Companies would be required to respond within an hour when an owner complains about a scooter being left, without permission, on their property.
The council could take a final vote on the proposed regulations Sept. 25.
Also Tuesday, the council:
• Voted without comment to drop its eminent domain case to acquire a parking lot at Bricktown U-Haul to connect Oklahoma Avenue to the Oklahoma City Boulevard.
• Conducted a public hearing on a proposal to reduce the penalty for possession of marijuana to a $400 fine. Only one person spoke, in favor of the idea.