One month after Bird brought hundreds of electric scooters to downtown San Antonio, a competing company has entered the mix.
California-based Lime, formerly known as LimeBike, on Friday released its e-scooters onto San Antonio streets.
Meanwhile, the dockless vehicles remain unregulated in the city. Councilman Rey Saldaña (D4) has said City Council’s Transportation Committee will initiate the process of creating a policy framework at an August meeting.
E-scooters have been unleashed into larger cities throughout the country, their purveyors touting them as a last-mile solution as gridlock chokes many metropolitan areas.
Their opponents see them as a nuisance. Dockless parking means some scooters have ended up in public rights-of-way such as ramps for wheelchair users. Safety – the scooters can go as fast as 15 mph and few riders wear helmets – and improper use on sidewalks are also chief among their concerns.
Lime held a meet-and-greet event at Halcyon in Southtown Wednesday to sign people up to become scooter chargers. Chargers are compensated for rounding up the e-scooters at night to charge them and then release them the next morning in high-use areas.
Daniel Alfrido Jr. was among those who lined up to receive four chargers. He also signed up to be a charger for Bird and is awaiting a shipment of chargers in the mail.
Alfrido said he plans to wrangle up anywhere from 10 to 20 scooters a night to earn extra income. The lifelong San Antonio resident said he lives close to Mission San Jose and can drop off the vehicles at various locales downtown before going to his day job in the morning.
“One job’s not enough anymore,” he said. “You have to have like two or three side gigs.”
Lime officials at noon Friday at City Hall gave a demonstration on how to use the scooters.
To activate the scooters, users must download the app and pay a $1 base fee to unlock a vehicle and then 15 cents for every minute of use.
Lime is in 70 markets, including Arlington, Austin, Dallas, and Plano.
The City will hold a public meeting on Tuesday from 6-8 p.m. at 600 Soledad St. to garner input on a program to pilot the vehicles that would inform safety guidelines and regulations.
Does anyone know the difference between Lime and Bird? Seems like both scooter companies offer the same service at the same price point. Also, what happened to our homegrown solution – Blue Duck? I read they were launching a few weeks ago but haven’t seen or heard anything.
I was downtown twice this past week. The first time was a visit to a late afternoon reception on the River Walk at Commerce Street. The second time was for a performance at the Tobin Center. Both times, people whizzed by me on electric scooters, and I saw no one on the B Cycles. I could understand the appeal of the powered scooters vs. the bicycles in the hot weather we have been having. So far, I have only noticed one location where 3 scooters had been left that seemed to create an obstruction for walkers.
I live near Blue Star. Bird’s scooters are constantly clogging up the sidewalks there. This morning was no exception, with one planted right in the middle of the sidewalk. They’re also using the King William Park gazebo to place them and I’ve seen a few of them thrown onto the park itself. I’m not against them by any means, but they’re definitely beginning to clutter up the neighborhood.
I have been “scooting” on a Bird several times and find it both enjoyable and even convenient. I found a much cheaper parking spot away from downtown and used a scooter to journey to Main Plaza, a true “last mile” implementation. There will need to be an intensive public educational program to reinforce the need to ride and park them so they won’t be a hazard.
So if the City Council approves the use of these “motorized vehicles “ on city thoroughfares it will mean I can ride my golf cart to HEB?
I certainly hope so!
I ride them to and from work almost every day here in San Antonio. We just need to keep riders off the sidewalks.
I think they will be some help to downtown commuters of certain ages and health levels. But I am afraid there will be a lot of problems and issues. I cannot believe that the City ok’s them w/o any rules or regs in place? Sounds like make work for lawyers and doctors. In traffic? On crowded sidewalks? With some goofball going too fast and crazy? Will they or someone need insurance? Stolen? No little warning horn? We’ll see, hope they are great. Seems like a real bright color with nite reflecting tape would be good too.
They’re pretty handy. In my opinion, Bird is faster than Lime, but Bird requires scanning in your DL. Helmets are going to be hard to enforce if they’re not provided. Many riders are tourists and what tourist packs a helmet.
Is there a weight limit on these scooters? I am avg. HT &WT for S.A.