Bird Rides, a rideshare company in bringing its electrical scooter program to Riverhead final 12 months, appears to have deserted its plans after expressing to native officers that the town’s rules on electrical scooters have been too restrictive, in accordance to Councilman Ken Rothwell.
Rothwell mentioned Bird has not contacted the town since final 12 months, after the company objected to town officers on native rules that confine e-scooters to the downtown space and mandate that riders put on helmets whereas working them.
“They just kind of stopped inquiring with us,” Rothwell mentioned. “So they never said like, ‘hey, we’re not interested in Riverhead.’ But based on the current plan that we had and the current area, they just kind of stopped making contact with us and stopped asking about going forward and came to terms of actually finalizing a contract with it.”
The Town Board held a piece session with Bird consultant Jeremy Lynch in April 2021, the place Town Board members mentioned and expressed assist for the partnership. Bird, a California-based micromobility company, rents electrical scooters by way of an app, very like the town’s bike share program. Users of the app should be 18 or older, present identification and move a safety course earlier than renting. Bird has leases arrange in over 400 cities the world over, in accordance to the company’s web site.
[See prior coverage: Riverhead eyes electric scooters for downtown]
Soon after the primary assembly, the Town Board started to draft an modification to town code part 213, which governs bicycles, and handed an area regulation codifying the modification final October. In addition to establishing the boundaries to the downtown space and mandating helmets, the regulation additionally requires that scooters solely be operated up to 15 mph and can’t function on roadways with a pace restrict of greater than 30 mph, in addition to on Main Street. They additionally can’t be operated in designated bicycle lanes or on sidewalks.
[See prior coverage: Proposed code changes would restrict electric scooters ahead of rideshare program launch]
A Bird spokesperson mentioned on the time the draft was launched that the company wasn’t conscious of rules the town was considering for using electrical scooters, however mentioned “they’re [Bird] sure they will be able to work within their [the town’s] parameters.”
That doesn’t seem to be the case. The company wished to permit the electrical scooters throughout town, Rothwell mentioned. The company additionally didn’t have the means to monitor whether or not a rider has a helmet or to distribute a helmet to each rider to be used, Rothwell mentioned. Both these restrictions have been put in place to guarantee riders’ safety.
“I think they thought maybe our restrictions were a little bit too much for them to profit off of it,” Rothwell mentioned.
Bird Rides didn’t reply to an electronic mail requesting remark earlier than this text was printed.
Rothwell mentioned that, opposite to Bird’s assertion to RiverheadLOCAL final 12 months, the town was in communication with Bird by electronic mail in the course of the drafting of the code.
Rothwell mentioned he would nonetheless like to see a partnership with Bird and the town. He mentioned the company could also be in the long run as extra growth initiatives in the downtown space are erected, such because the town sq. and mixed-use condominium constructing close to Riverhead’s Long Island Rail Road station.
“I would potentially hope that they will consider coming back in the future. I think it’s a nice, you know, recreational activity; it can be fun downtown. But we have to constantly take in the safety factor of it,” he mentioned.
Bird has had blended success all through the United States. Some residents in neighborhoods have raised considerations over scooters being deserted on the sidewalk, like in West Springfield Massachusetts, or lacking solely, like in Littleton, Colorado. Bird additionally introduced final week it might pull its enterprise out of St. Joe and Benton Harbor in Michigan. Meanwhile, they’ve change into successful in different areas like Oswego County upstate, the place they’re fashionable amongst faculty college students at SUNY Oswego.
In May 2021, a month after Lynch’s dialog with the Town Board, Bird went public by merging with particular function acquisition company with an implied valuation of $2.3 billion, in accordance to TechCrunch. Since then, it has been principally downhill financially for the company, which had already suffered a heavy hit in 2020. The company generated $205.1 million in income in 2021, a web lack of $196.3 million.
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