Scooters Grow in Popularity

Ever since rolling out onto the streets of Long Beach this past summer, more and more people are taking electric scooters for a ride.

Folks use them to get to work and school, take them on errands and go for joyrides with friends at the beach. Whatever the reason, the scooters are popular nowadays.

“The city has implemented a pilot e-scooter program to determine community benefits/impacts,” Public Works Director Craig Beck said through email. “The pilot started July 1 and is currently underway.”

Beck said the companies Lime, Bird, Razor, Spin, Skip and Unscooters have received operating permits to provide e-scooter services in Long Beach.

“The city is not financially involved,” he said. “All operational costs are funded by those companies.”

He said each of the six companies can deploy up to 200 scooters and maintenance is handled by the businesses respectively.

The use of scooters has flourished across the state, country and even world.

In California, Governor Jerry Brown recently got rid of a scooter helmet requirement.

“Adults over 21 are no longer required to wear helmets while riding scooters; however, the city strongly encourages people to do so,” Beck said.

E-scooters are banned on the beach’s bike path, per Long Beach’s municipal code.

“I think you should be able to ride them anywhere you want … ” said local resident and scooter-rider George Herrera. “If you can’t ride them in an ideal spot like the beach, where are we supposed to ride these?”

Like many others, Herrera zipped on the beach’s bike path during a Sunday afternoon.

Ronan Boiteau, a Cal State Long Beach French exchange student, said he rides a scooter to school but cannot take it onto the grounds, as the university prohibits e-scooters on campus. He also takes them to work and has used them in France.

“It’s way better than the subways in Paris,” he said. “It’s way more fun.”

But it’s more expensive than the subway, he added.

Boiteau said he pays Bird $1 to start and then 15 cents a minute and the price is the same for Lime.

People can ride e-scooters through downloaded mobile applications. They walk up to a scooter and with a cellular device they scan the code to unlock it, get on and then take off. The scooters can be located by wireless means.

The battery-operated, dockless scooters are left behind and picked up just about anywhere.

Later in the day, contract workers gather them up in vehicles and take them home to be charged, The Atlantic reported May 20 in “Electric Scooter Charger Culture Is Out of Control – ‘Bird hunting’ has become a pastime and a side hustle for teens and young professionals, but for some it’s a cutthroat business.”

The paper interviewed a high school senior who “on one particularly successful night” made $600 for charging Bird scooters. The following morning he delivers them to “Bird Nests,” or scooter pickup locations, the paper reported.

Various “e-scooter share drop zone” spaces exist throughout Long Beach where people can drop off and grab scooters.

Mary Carb rode a Bird on the beach. She said finding a scooter that works well can be challenging.

“They seem to always be damaged or no battery,” she said. “Other than that, they’re great.”

Allen Fan and Peter Kim cruised on the beach bicycle path.

They said they’ve experienced times when the scooters did not work and times when there was not great Wi-Fi connectivity. But the scooters are still fun, they agreed.

They were in a hurry to find more-charged-up scooters before the ones they were on ran out of juice.

“We’re going post by post by post,” Kim said. “There’s a reliability issue.”

Various newspaper publications, blogs and television reports have detailed problems with e-scooters.

“Scooter use is rising in major cities. So are trips to the emergency room,” reads a Washington Post Sept. 6 headline.

“Electric Scooters Are Causing Havoc. This Man Is Shrugging It Off,” states an April 20 New York Times headline about an article discussing Bird founder Travis VanderZanden.

“Bird scooters are ruining Venice,” declares a May 15 Los Angeles Times headline to an op-ed by Nate Jackson.

“Abandoned Scooters: Rented scooters causing problems in Pacific Beach,” cries the headline to a Feb. 7 piece by San Diego News 8.

“Injuries are the untold part of the scooter trend, doctors and victims say,” reads a Sept. 10 San Francisco Chronicle headline.

“Electric scooters caused headaches in Louisville. Is Lexington ready? Not yet,” declares an Aug. 15 Herald Leader headline.

And so on.

Long Beach Mayor Robert Garcia said in a July 23 Twitter comment: “But we should embrace and try new forms of multimodal transit. These scooters can and do provide incredible forms of transportation for many people. I’m hopeful that we can get it right during this pilot program.”

He added, “I’ve read almost every article about these scooters and understand the concerns – which is why we are piloting a program that takes best practices from other cities. This is not a perfect science and adjustments will need to be made as we go.”

kirt@beachcomber.news