KNOXVILLE, Tenn. (WVLT) – Visitors to Knoxville may have a brand new possibility to get round downtown: electrical bikes.
As a part of the City’s Shared Dockless Scooter Program, a brand new vendor, Bird, will likely be permitting at the least 50 e-bikes to hit the streets of Knoxville. The vendor was chosen to function within the metropolis and the University of Tennessee areas and also will add up to 300 extra electrical scooters.
“We are excited to offer a new option for ways we can move around the City with the addition of e-bikes to Knoxville,” mentioned Carter Hall, the City’s Policy and Business Innovation Manager. “We’ve heard from residents that they’ve missed the bike share option in Knoxville, and we are happy to bring it back with even more updated options.
New permits with the vendors will also add ways for people to report inappropriate actions with the scooters and bikes and to park in assigned spaces that will reduce the clutter on the streets.
The My Knoxville app will now allow visitors and residents to alert misuse of electric scooters and bikes. If necessary, the app will also allow fines to be accessed and paid.
In order to reduce the clutter of the e-bikes and e-scooters on Knoxville streets, some parking spaces will be converted into parking corrals. All scooters will be returned to the corrals at night to start the following day.
City officials said this would make for a tidier downtown. They also hope the addition of electric bikes and scooters will decrease greenhouse gas emissions that cars would.
“We heard very strong support for low-emissions mobility from the Mayor’s Climate Council,” mentioned Brian Blackmon, the City’s Sustainability Director. “With no fuel burned in the city, scooters and e-bikes provide a low-emissions way for folks to get to their favorite places in the city quickly.”
Users are required to have a driver’s license to register, in accordance to metropolis officers. The metropolis gives extra info on the town’s scooter program on its web site.
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