The metropolis of Hastings is partnering with Bird Rides to supply electrical scooters for lease beginning this spring, with a hope they entice extra folks to go to historic downtown and power round on riverfront trails.
The metropolis council earlier this month authorized a license settlement with Bird Rides that permits the California-based firm to launch the e-scooter sharing service with up to 100 of the two-wheelers this 12 months all through town. Bird Rides pays town a $500 license price, plus $50 for every e-scooter.
After being approached by Bird Rides final fall, council members then adopted an ordinance that establishes guidelines for e-scooters and e-bikes. It covers issues akin to the place they allowed, akin to on trails and alongside shoulders of streets and roads, and never allowed like downtown sidewalks.
John Hinzman, town’s group improvement director, mentioned officers with Bird Rides advised him final week they’d like to roll them out in 4 weeks. Hinzman mentioned he had to enlighten the Santa Monica firm of the unpredictability of spring in Minnesota.
“So I put a big asterisk next to that,” he mentioned.
POPPING UP ACROSS THE STATE
In Minnesota, Bird Rides e-scooters have popped up in current years in cities of various sizes, together with St. Paul, Minneapolis, Duluth and Albert Lea, though they are going to be new to the south metro.
“It’ll be interesting here,” Hinzman mentioned. “It could it be as a tourist attraction for folks, because there are not many places that offer these outside of Minneapolis and St. Paul.”
Hinzman envisions most individuals will likely be utilizing the e-scooters on town’s paved trails, together with a 10-mile loop, which takes customers alongside the banks of the Vermillion and Mississippi rivers and thru Levee Park in town’s historic downtown.
But he additionally envisions them getting used for transportation, perhaps by boaters who dock at marinas throughout the river.
“That might create more trips downtown, be kind of a fun way to get over the bridge,” he mentioned.
MEETING CONCERNS OVER SAFETY, OPERATING
City employees and council members had plenty of security and working considerations with bringing a scooter-sharing service on-line, however Hinzman believes they’ve addressed in the ordinance and license settlement with Bird Rides, which was based in 2017 by a former Uber and Lyft govt who grew up in Appleton, Wis.
Riding on downtown sidewalks was one concern, though that will likely be prohibited underneath metropolis guidelines. A GPS monitoring system and different expertise inside an e-scooter will be sure that of that by slowing them down and bringing them to a halt at downtown sidewalks.
Safety was one other concern. The e-scooters have a prime pace of 15 mph on flat surfaces, and customers should adjust to all site visitors legal guidelines, Hinzman mentioned.
The settlement with Hastings states that Bird Rides should encourage customers to put on helmets and likewise requires the corporate to safe a $1.5 million legal responsibility insurance coverage coverage. The metropolis can’t be held liable for private accidents, dying or property harm, in accordance to the settlement.
The firm should additionally preserve information on any accidents that will occur on its e-scooters.
DITCHED SCOOTERS
The metropolis’s guidelines additionally tackle e-scooters being ditched on non-public property or in crosswalks or alongside shoulders of roads — all points which have come up in different locations. When an e-scooter is “discarded or left haphazardly in the right-of-way or areas where they shouldn’t be left,” Hinzman mentioned, a police officer or one other metropolis employee can impound the e-scooter. Bird Rides will likely be charged a $50 impound price and $20 a day thereafter.
Bird may also have a neighborhood fleet supervisor whose job is to monitor them down and put them at locations the place folks typically need to lease them, he mentioned.
When it comes to age, customers should be over 18 years outdated. The Bird app {that a} buyer should to obtain earlier than rental will ask for age verification as a part of the consumer settlement.
When achieved, the app would require the consumer to snap a photograph that exhibits the place it’s left as a means to guarantee it’s correctly parked and doesn’t impede right-of-way entry, Hinzman mentioned.
The value to trip a Bird e-scooter is $1 to unlock it after which a further per-minute price, for a median worth of $7 a trip, in accordance to Bird, which has them in 375 cities in 25 counties.