San Antonio Express-News (Sunday)
Scooters becoming big wheels in S.A.
In and around downtown, more and more people are buzzing around on a high-tech version of a child’s twowheeled scooter, one that is powered by an electric motor and controlled by a smartphone app.
Already, about 150 “e-scooters” are available for rent from a company out of Santa Monica, California, called Bird.
Blue Duck, a San Antonio company, is testing its scooters at the Pearl, with plans to eventually roll out 1,000 or so, co-founder and President Eric Bell said.
And a third company, Lime, based in San Mateo, California, which rents scooters and bicycles in several major U.S. cities, will be in San An- tonio “very, very soon,” the firm’s local lobbyist said.
So far, the city has left e-scooters unregulated but is encouraging the companies to follow some
basic guidelines, such as parking them safely on sidewalks.
The new devices — arguably more comfortable to ride than a bike, more nimble than a car, more readily available than a bus — address the dilemma of how to get around in a city when the distance is too far to walk but too short to drive.
“I’m seeing people everywhere riding them around,” said Mayor Ron Nirenberg, who’s already taken a Bird for a test ride. “What we’re seeing is that the free market is crowdsourcing solutions to our everyday transportation problems. Cities like ours should be embracing these technologies.”
San Antonio officials’ handsoff response to scooters stands in stark contrast to how they handled the arrival of ridehailing companies Uber and Lyft about five years ago.
That service caught on quickly and disrupted the traditional taxi industry and, to some extent, public transit. As with e-scooters now, those firms tapped new technology and smartphone apps, launching before there were any city or state rules.
Officials here worked feverishly to come up with some ride-hailing regulations amid a persistent drumbeat from the taxi industry that Uber and Lyft, which became its primary competitors, were dangerous for passengers and financially harmful to it and its drivers.
Once the city acted, the ordinance was so onerous that both companies shuttered operations in San Antonio. They returned only after the City Council adopted a compromise ordinance with the help of Councilman Roberto Treviño and TechBloc, an organization of private-sector tech leaders who’d coalesced around the need for ride-hailing if San Antonio wanted to continue to evolve as a destination for young workers.
Nirenberg, since he started on the council in 2013, has put a high priority on transportation services and was an early supporter of ride-hailing. He’s expected to bring forward an extensive transportation plan to voters next year that likely will include various forms of “future-proof ” transit technologies to connect highly populated centers in the area.
But as he and Bexar County Judge Nelson Wolff have said, there’s the problem of the “last mile” for transit users.
For example, a far-North Side resident might ride a VIA Metropolitan Transit express bus from the Stone Oak Park & Ride garage to downtown for work. But getting across downtown, especially in San Antonio’s oppressive summer heat, can be difficult.
Javi Cano is director of demand generation at Liquid Web, a web-hosting company with an office on East Houston Street near the San Antonio River. Cano, who sometimes rides a VIA express bus from the North Side to downtown, said it “is pretty cool” to have e-scooters here. When he’s without a vehicle, a scooter can broaden the range he can travel downtown for lunch.
“It’s nice to have access to new technology and services that other major cities have,” said Cano, who has used Bird a couple of times. “I see them working (in) downtown because our downtown is fairly large. It can be quite a trek to get to some places. And with this summer heat, it’s nice to get there a little faster and not have to pay for an Uber.”
John Jacks, director of the Center City Development and Operations Department, said there are some concerns about the scooters, primarily regarding public safety and parking. In Dallas, he said, sidewalks were overwhelmed by heaps of what are known as “dockless” rental bicycles, or those that can be parked anywhere.
The electric scooters are a bit different, though. Jacks noted that because the scooters’ batteries have to be recharged every night, the companies more frequently check on where they are parked.
Bird pays people called “chargers” — those who have opted to gather and recharge the scooters at night, then set them out the next day. Blue Duck has dedicated staff to do the same, though it eventually will have some users helping as well.
When the scooters are parked in the mornings, in “flocks” for Blue Duck, and “nests” for Bird, they’re arranged neatly and ready for use, usually along the busier streets. Using the smartphone app, riders unlock them, which costs $1, then are charged 15 cents a minute.
Jacks said the city’s guidelines for scooter companies, though not yet enforceable, state that scooters should be parked out of the way, near bike racks or parallel with buildings; not blocking sidewalks or violating the Americans with Disabilities Act access points; and that riders should stay off sidewalks and use bike lanes where possible.
Cano said he can see the potential for the scooters being a nuisance.
“But from what I’ve seen so far,” he said, “there isn’t a huge abundance of them and people have done a fair job parking them in places that aren't obstructing the sidewalk.”
Jacks and his staff are researching other cities’ regulations to glean what are “best practices” and likely will recommend policy guidelines for the City Council’s Transportation Committee to consider in August. An ordinance could go before the full council soon thereafter.
In recent weeks, at least three major cities — Nashville, Indianapolis and Milwaukee — have taken action to temporarily halt scooter-rental operators while their governing councils work on regulations and licensing
Adopting regulations in San Antonio likely won’t be the protracted mess it was with ride-hailing services for a couple of reasons. One, there’s no massive group of opponents (like the taxi industry dropping loads of campaign cash in council members’ coffers), and the tech firms behind the scooters seem willing to be partners with the city in a way that, perhaps, Uber and Lyft weren’t.
According to Bird’s information sheet, the company offers “to remit $1 per vehicle per day to city governments so they can use this money to build more bike lanes, promote safe riding, and maintain our shared infrastructure.”
Bell, the Blue Duck CEO, said he and his team have been talking with city and county officials for months to ensure good-faith efforts to operate here responsibly.
“It doesn’t feel like ride-share all over again,” said Bell, who served on the TechBloc board when ride-hailing companies set up shop.
Councilman Rey Saldaña, chairman of the Transportation Committee, said this time around, San Antonio’s approach to regulations will be more cautious.
“My perspective as the chairman of the Transportation Committee is that we have a very light-glove approach to any regulation on this new transportation option. I’ve seen San Antonians riding it around town; I’ve reflected with them on their feedback, and the feedback is, ‘We like it, and we want more of it,’ ” he said. “And what we’ll try to do at the Transportation Committee is come away with a message to those industries and those companies trying to come to San Antonio that they’re welcome here, but at the end of the day, there’s going to be some set of rules.”