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“Looks like some of them birds made it your way”

Our founder John Murden shared this screenshot with us yesterday. Looks like a couple of you brought some scooters to our neighborhood! If you haven’t yet caught up, “Bird” attempted an unannounced launch in Richmond and some scooters made it our way. The marketing blitz didn’t quite work with the City shutting down the service by the afternoon.

Bird” is a company based in Santa Monica with a goal to continue the “biggest revolution in transportation since the dawn of the Jet Age (…) we have an unprecedented opportunity to reduce car trips – especially the roughly 40 percent of trips under two miles – thereby reducing traffic, congestion, and greenhouse gas emissions”.

Check out Crossfit Prelude having some fun this morning.

Operations didn’t last very long as by Thursday afternoon the city announced that Bird was not allowed to run in Richmond. CBS 6 confirmed with the City:

Tom Byrnes, a spokesman for the mayor’s office, confirmed that the city was collecting and impounding the scooters, saying that Bird did not have the permissions needed to drop their fleet in the city.

“They deployed them without engaging the city. We had no contact with them,” Byrnes said. “It’s akin to opening a restaurant without engaging the city or following the rules and processes.”

Not all is done with Bird as Mayor Stoney seems to be a fan of the service. He took to Twitter saying, “Hey @BirdRide! I like these scooters. How about we get our teams around the table and make this work the right way?” In an email, Bird said meetings with the city have been scheduled for next week.

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NCB12 shared some background information on how the scooters work:

  • Users locate and unlock a scooter for $1 through the bird mobile app
  • The scooters are dockless – meaning they can be left anywhere to pick up and leave behind after you’re done
  • All rides are cut off at dusk (no new rides can be originated), rides in progress can continue until the rider ends the session. Chargers begin collecting Birds at dusk.
  • Each night, every Bird on the road is picked up by a “Charger” – a third party person who agrees to host Bird scooters on their property such as coffee shops, hotels, etc.

There is a debate over the scooters in California, check out some of these articles

Uber and Lyft have won a key battleground in the electric scooter wars — and it’s a huge blow to the $2 billion startup that created the scooter phenomenon

Bird, Lime Shut Down Scooters After Committee Endorses Others

Bird scooters — so much fun, so damn dangerous

2 comments

dontmincewords 08/18/2018 at 11:18 AM

Aaron doing mobile pistols is priceless.

Reply
Vicki Moeser 08/18/2018 at 1:16 PM

Saw one this morning outside of Liberty.

Reply

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