The Municipal Services Committee met 05/09/2022 and received their first Bird E-Scooter report of the year. It was short and sweet.
Director of Public Works Paula Vandehey explained for the benefit of the new alderpersons that the reports provided information for them to take into account when, at the end of the year, Council decided if the e-scooter program was something that they wanted to continue or not.
Alderperson William Siebers (District 1) asked how long a scooter could sit unused at a certain place before it was moved. Was it supposed to be moved after 7 days?
Director Vandehey asked him to send her an email with the address of the scooter in question because scooters should be sitting in the same spot that long. All the information regarding scooter use was supposed to go into an algorithm which would, theoretically, let Bird know that a scooter was never used in a certain location so that it could be relocated to an area where there was higher scooter use and demand.
Residents could call the Department of Public Works to report problems.
Alderperson Chad Doran (District 15) asked when the city might begin having discussions with Bird about making the program permanent.
Director Vandehey responded that she assumed the Council would want to go through the entire pilot which, last year, stretched into November until the weather started getting bad and Bird pulled their scooters off the road. She thought by the end of the year the Common Council would decide what they wanted to do moving forward.
[I’d be a little surprised if they don’t end up moving forward with the program. I feel like I’ve seen a lot more people using Birds this year than I did last year, and using them outside of the Downtown area, so it seems to be well enjoyed. It would be nice, however, if people stopped parking them directly in the middle of the sidewalk.]
View full meeting details and video here: https://cityofappleton.legistar.com/MeetingDetail.aspx?ID=964910&GUID=FCA80820-D9E7-4731-9F6C-84A85ED0F65B
Be the first to reply