The Municipal Services Committee met 07/25/2022. One of the information items they received, and the only one to actually be spoken about, was the June 2022 Bird E-Scooter Pilot Program Update.
The report spoke for itself, and may have gone unremarked upon had not retired alderperson Joe Martin attended the meeting to speak on this item.
He told the committee members that he had a lot of free time now and he spent it at Acoca Coffee on College Avenue. He was there often both in the morning and the evening which gave him an opportunity to view the Bird scooters in action.
He recounted having seen a father rent three of the scooters for his children all of whom appeared to be not only under 18 but under 16. The father himself was riding a power assisted skateboard. Mr. Martin also observed 3 riders side-by-side on the College Avenue sidewalk in front of the PAC.
He pointed out that the scooters could go up to 15 miles per hour. When they hit College Avenue their top speed was supposed to decrease, but, upon checking with the Public Works Department, he learned that the speed only went down to 12 mph. He himself had a brand-new electric wheelchair but its top speed was only 8.6 mph. His wheelchair also had 6 wheels, not merely 2 like the scooters.
He had asked Police Chief Thomas to sit with him at the coffee shop one morning and observe the scooters. He said they both agreed that the speeds were too high.
Mr. Martin believed the Bird e-scooter program was a great program, just not a great program on College Avenue. He asked the committee, when they started looking at signing a contract with Bird, to consider having the speed of the scooters on College Avenue drop down to 2 mph. He thought that would probably guarantee that no one would want to ride on College Avenue because the scooters would be travelling more slowly than they could walk.
The committee did not have any comments on that suggestion or any questions or comments on the item overall.
View full meeting details and video here: https://cityofappleton.legistar.com/MeetingDetail.aspx?ID=982991&GUID=9FFFD603-3733-4B15-A385-D5C6961C1E74
Be the first to reply