During the 11/08/2021 Municipal Services Committee meeting, the committee spent over 50 minutes receiving a presentation on the Bird E-Scooter pilot program and then discussing the issues that had come up through the pilot program. Last week I recapped Bird representative Adam Blau’s presentation to the committee, and this post is now focused on the community feedback and discussion that followed that presentation.
Two members of the public made comments. David Oliver the owner of Mondo Wine Bar on downtown College Avenue stated that he was vehemently against the scooters. The business he operates has tables outside on the sidewalk, and he is outside on the sidewalks himself a lot. He has witnessed countless riders on the sidewalk. He did not think they cared that the Bird app told them not to ride on the sidewalk, nor did they care what signs posted by the city said.
He had video footage of a scooter slamming into one of his tables. Thankfully nobody was sitting there at the time, but he was concerned that might not be the case in the future. He thought that the city already had a huge problem with skateboards and bicycles, and was concerned that they were now adding scooters. The skateboards and bicycles were not something the city of Appleton had control over and were not things they could get rid of, but the scooters were something the city could choose to not bring in.
He stated that every community member he had talked to was opposed to the scooters and that just about every College Avenue business owner he had talked to was against them. He wanted to see the scooters end as soon as possible.
Jennifer Stephany the Executive Director of Appleton Downtown Incorporated also spoke. She said that although ADI had heard positive community feedback regarding the scooters and did believe there was a role for them in Appleton, they also had concerns similar to those Mr. Oliver had brought up and with riders coming through the Farmer’s Market. While they loved to see the alternative modes of transportation be available to the community, they also felt it was necessary to find a solution to the problems raised. She hoped the Bird representatives could speak as to how they had solved these problems in other communities because she didn’t think Appleton was the first city to have these struggles.
She wondered if maybe the scooters needed to be eliminated from College Avenue all together, and said that ADI had heard very strong feedback from business owners regarding the safety concerns for pedestrians on the sidewalk.
Alderperson Brad Firkus (District 3) the chairperson of the committee opened things up for comments and questions from the committee members and alderpersons who were present.
Alderperson Vered Meltzer (District 2) had heard a lot of concerns similar to those raised by Ms. Stephany and Mr. Oliver and did not feel comfortable moving forward beyond the pilot program until they had a solution for that problem. The pilot program had identified what a benefit these scooters could be to the community, but the safety issues needed to be resolved in order to move forward.
Alderperson Joe Martin (District 4) asked if the Bird app talked to its users about the rules of the road. He also pointed out that the city of Appleton had an ordinance that banned riding bikes, skateboards, and presumably scooters, from the College Avenue sidewalks between Drew Street and Badger Avenue. He also pointed out that there were bike lanes on Washington Street and Lawrence Street.
He did think it was a great program and he had seen the scooters being used every day at Lawrence University. He thought that there was a way with technology to make the scooters happen for Appleton and that the pilot program had helped them learn a lot and provided a great starting point. He also agreed with the things Ms. Stephany had said and respected the comments from Mr. Oliver. Overall, he thought the scooters would benefit the community.
Bird representative Adam Blau said that, in terms of rider education, when a person first downloads the Bird app and creates an account, they go through a safety tutorial that states the local regulations. Bird also pushes out communications via email, push notifications, and in-app messages.
He thought there were things the company could do regarding the Farmers Market such as sending out communications tailored specifically to that. They could also implement a no-ride zone during the Farmers Market. He agreed that no one should be riding through there.
They welcomed feedback and wanted to know about those sorts of things so that they could make changes. Their program was an extremely evolving program. They were in over 350 cities across the world. He expressed a desire to meet with Mr. Oliver to talk about his concerns.
Bird representative Michael Covato was appearing at the meeting remotely, and wanted to talk about the issues that had been raised.
During the pilot, Appleton had 30,000 rides taken on a fleet of fewer than 100 scooters and 2,000 people were regularly relying on the scooters as a public transportation option to get to and from work so he thought Bird was clearly delivering considerable benefit. He did however understand that benefit didn’t mitigate or eliminate the community concerns, but he thought it was important to acknowledge the positive impact Bird had on people. He pointed out to Ms. Stephany that there was a lot of scooter traffic that came to College Avenue which suggested that they were bringing significantly increased spending to local businesses due to that commercial strip being a popular spot for people to drive to.
He did think there were things Bird could do to help make sure they were delivering the most benefit with the least amount of nuisance possible. He did not want any riders hitting business owners’ tables as happened to Mr. Oliver. Every Bird user is required to go through a safety tutorial. Bird also had the ability to track their riders. Michael told Mr. Oliver that if his video had a timestamp on it, he could send Bird that information and they could figure out who the rider was who ran into the table and broke their rules and either suspend or terminate the account. [While it definitely seems reasonable for a private company to suspend a rider for breaking their rules, at the same time, this kind of illustrates one of the dangers in relying on rideshare programs and public transportation options instead of personally owning a transportation vehicle, which is that private company who is renting their services to you can terminate your access to those services at any moment should they so choose.]
Michael also indicated that he would love for Ms. Stephany to act as a communication channel between Bird and local businesses. He wanted to ensure that they were creating some dynamic geofencing rules around things such as the Farmers Market. This was a pilot program and there was certainly more room for growth and for cross collaboration.
He concluded by saying that Appleton had responded overwhelmingly positively as indicated by the ridership data and Bird wanted to make sure that the experience for businesses on College Avenue was improved in 2022 if the city let Bird come back.
Public Works Director Paula Vandehey said that she wanted to make sure everyone understood the process that was currently going on. The presentation by the Bird representatives was taking place during that meeting, and the survey sent out by the city to Appleton residents was in the agenda packet. But there was no vote scheduled for that meeting. The focus of the discussion was on getting questions answered and providing feedback. Staff would be meeting internally the following week to review all the feedback they had received, then they would come back to the Municipal Services Committee at a later date with a recommendation for the committee to take up. There was not going to be any action tonight.
Alderperson Firkus confirmed she was correct and thanked her for clarifying that.
Alderperson Meltzer asked what the process was for reporting that a Bird scooter was blocking a path. How easy was that for someone who didn’t have a cellphone on them and who was not physically able to move a scooter themselves?
Michael said every scooter had a 24/7 customer service phone number listed on it as well as an email address and multiple social media accounts people could use to report issues to, such as scooters being knocked over or blocking paths. The local fleet manager would then be dispatched to correct the problem immediately.
Bird was also the only company to offer a “community mode” on their app. Individuals who did not want to be riders could still download the app and use it to scan/photograph scooters and report issues.
Adam summed it up by saying they had a 1-800 phone number, an in-app reporting feature, and an email address that was funneled to their support team and then to the local fleet manager. Those were the three main methods.
Director Vandehey said the city also received emails and calls and they then contact the local Bird fleet manager to get those problems taken care of.
Alderperson Meltzer wondered if there were any particularly areas where complaints were more of an issue and if Appleton/Bird should look at geofencing those areas. If there were particular places that Birds were causing issues for people with wheelchairs, perhaps they could look at not allowing the scooters to go there.
Alderperson Firkus said that it had been mentioned the BirdThree models had better GPS capabilities. He asked if that meant there was higher accuracy with geofencing capabilities and if they could better track where the scooters were.
Adam responded that that was definitely the case. The accuracy meant that once a scooter entered a geofenced area, they shut off almost instantaneously. That was because the GPS was loaded onto something they called “The Brain” instead of relying on cellular signals.
Director Vandehey shared that Bird had been very responsive when the city had issues with particular riders. The city had been able to give them the timestamp of when the problems happened and Bird had been able to research it and reach out to the riders.
Bird also worked with Captain Freeman from the Police Department. He had been able to go through and give them a list of dates and times for events when they wanted the Downtown zoned out, and those zone-outs were able to be prescheduled. Bird had also been able to easily block off Jones Park once the city realized there were problems
Alderperson Meltzer asked what kind of accountability there was for riders did something inappropriate on the scooter or caused damage beyond simply Bird shutting down their access to the app. Could the city or the police department do anything?
Alderperson Firkus thought that was a good question and also wondered if a report to Bird would be enough for the police department to give someone a fine for reckless driving or something along those minds.
Director Vandehey said she would have to check the Police Chief Thomas on that.
Alderperson Firkus understood the question couldn’t be answered at that moment, but he was curious if a report to the Bird would be enough to allow the city to legally take action if someone was breaking a municipal code or state statute.
Adam said that Bird worked with local police departments around the country and with a subpoena could provide rider information and things of that nature.
Alderperson Denise Fenton said that, in looking over the city survey, one of the complaints that came up again and again was underage riders. She didn’t know how Bird could enforce that, and she didn’t think the city wanted to have the police spend time carding Bird riders. At the same time, she did think there were some safety concerns with young people riding them, since helmet were not required and some people were using them for entertainment and not transportation.
She had another question related to the survey and the value of the scooters as “green transportation”. 15% of the survey respondents said they were using the scooters as a “last mile” connector. She wondered how many of those rides were taking the place of an automobile as opposed to taking the place of walking. In terms of greenhouse gases, the scooters still needed to be charged, so she thought it would not be preferable to replace walking with scooter riding.
Adam said that by default Bird does not require a drivers license both for equity reasons and because cities did not want Bird to have access to that level of data. Bird could, however, implement a driver’s license requirement and could talk to the city of Appleton about what that would look like.
In answer to her “green transportation” question Michael said that Bird had done their own survey and part of the information they had collected was about how many trips the scooters replaced in terms of personal car, ride-share, or trips that would not have otherwise been taken. Almost 20% of respondents indicated they would have used their personal car, an additional ~4% said they would have used an Uber or Lyft, and 20% said they would not have taken the trip at all, indicating that Bird was creating new trips. Per Michael, only a small number of individuals who said they would have used public transportation instead.
Adam said he would be happy to share that information via email if they wanted.
Director Vandehey also wanted to point out that there was no law she was aware of that set an age limit on riding a scooter. Additionally, people were purchasing their own e-scooters, so if they were going to chase down underage Bird riders what were they going to do about underage people who own their scooters. From the very beginning of the pilot, their opinion was that if it failed it would have nothing to do with the piece of equipment and everything to do with the people who ride them. She thought that was why Adam had been working so hard on education in an attempt to get the people who use the scooters to use them appropriately.
Alderperson Firkus thought that e-scooters were similar to traditional bicycles or e-bikes. Those weren’t going away either. But there were definitely some problems unique to the Birds in terms of where they were left parked. He knew that some other cities have been trying different policies to deal with that such as created designated parking areas or implementing locking requirements. He asked if Adam or Michael could share what the impact those requirements had had on the problem and if they had impacted usership at all.
In response to the designated parking idea, Michael said that the true benefit of the scooters was having a public transportation option that allowed someone to go directly from point A to Point B. It was cost effective, efficient, possessed and element of fund, and could reduce traffic congestion. The fact that they could accomplish that with a very limited number of devices on the road further spoke to the fact that there was further spoke to the fact that there was a need for people to go between specific destinations. He also said that one could run into concerns around equity, meaning having the Birds distributed fairly through the city so that people who might experience socioeconomic challenges could also have access to the scooters as a public transportation option. However, if the city started designation particularly locations for parking that could cause challenges.
He did acknowledge that there was the opportunity to utilize a hybrid system under certain circumstances such as creating preferred parking locations in particular areas. They had implemented something like that by the Performing Arts Center. He said they could explore that with city staff. In generally, however, he said that having designated parking zoned did substantially reduce the benefit of shared mobility systems like Bird.
He said there were a number of challenges with “lock to” requirements, and he said that the data indicated that those requirements didn’t actually impact any of the experiences in any kind of meaningful way. It was something that looked good without actually having a real effect.
He thought it was more important for Bird to continue to educate their riders and work with city staff to massage their geofencing and implement some preferred parking one without creating a scenario where the city-imposed barriers that didn’t actually result in benefit. [I’m not a Bird rider, and I can’t say I care one way or the other about them. But requiring them to be locked to something when not being used seems like it might cause more problems. At least now if a Bird is in the way a person can pick it up and move it. If it ends up being locked to something in an obnoxious location, however, only the Bird fleet manager would be able to rectify that. Additionally, I regularly see Birds down on some of the walking paths by the river, and I don’t know what they could be locked to.]
Alderperson Firkus said that fit with some of his research regarding lock to requirements. He liked the designated parking idea and thought there may be some opportunities around College Avenue to implement that.
Adam also said they could explore incentivized parking such as giving people a certain amount off their ride if they park in a specific location. He thought they could get creative and work with the city.
Alderperson Firkus suggested exploring signage or street markings on College Avenue. Maybe they could create designated parking areas and have people walk the last block to their destinations.
Alderperson Meltzer didn’t expect an answer right then but did want to know what other communities with Bird scooters have done regarding fines or penalties for people using scooters inappropriately.
Alderperson Fenton said she had seen a Bird over two days, seemingly unused, parked half on the sidewalk and half on a person’s yard. She wondered how closely the scooters were monitored for improper parking.
Adam said they were monitored every day. The fleet manager’s job was full time. His app would immediately show all the Birds that didn’t need action because they were fully charged and not out of place. He would also see the demand patters of where people were opening their apps, where they were riding, and the likelihood that a user has ridden a good number of times and parked in a particularly location regularly. As mentioned before, there were mechanisms to report if a scooter needed to be moved, and the fleet manager was responsive to that. If a scooter was sitting in a location for more than two days but hadn’t been ridden it was likely because it was in a high demand area and that rider had ridden in that location before.
Michael added that if somebody had a scooter in a particular location and it was on private property as she had described then it is very likely that an individual who resides there took that trip and left that scooter there with the intention of using it the following day. If you see a scooter in the same location two days in a row, it’s quite possible that it’s one of those regular commuters who is simply bringing a unit back and forth to their home.
Alderperson Fenton asked if Appleton went with a full program how many vehicles would they expect to be operating at one time.
Michael answered that between Appleton’s population, geographic size, and the number of students living here, they could probably have close to 800, maybe even 1,000, scooters. However, he thought that was far too many. They wanted to work with the city to find the right number where they would be creating a lot of benefit to the community without creating an overwhelming number of complaints. He thought it might be appropriate to scale up to 200-300 units, perhaps by adding 25 one week and another 25 a few weeks after that, etc. just to make sure that everything is handled in an appropriate capacity. They could also always scale back and also delay any kind of fleet increase. There operational model allows them to be very dynamic in addressing concerns. He did think that if they added scooters, they would see considerable additional ridership and that far more people would turn to it as a public transportation option.
Alderperson Firkus said he thought he remembered that Bird had piloted a scooter leasing program which would allow a person to pay per month to have their own scooter. He asked if they could speak to that. He wondered if an approach like that would be beneficial. He imagined that people who utilized such a program would take more care in where they park because they would feel some level of ownership even if they didn’t outright own the scooter.
Adam said they did have a rental program at one time but not anymore. It was extremely popular on college campuses where students didn’t want to have to go out and find a Bird. With the rental program, that user was responsible for charging the scooter and if, for whatever reason, it was damaged, they would have to send it back to Bird. Although they didn’t currently have that leasing program, they did have a retail program, which allowed someone to buy a scooter on their website.
No one had any further questions. Alderperson Firkus thanked Adam and Michael for their time and the presentation. He thought it had given the committee more information to work with and he was looking forward to seeing where the conversation went.
View full meeting details and video here: https://cityofappleton.legistar.com/MeetingDetail.aspx?ID=897659&GUID=879EBE8D-D582-4943-A153-1A5AD0ABE0FB
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