In December 2020, Lime Scooters launched a program in Bartlesville that made electric scooters accessible to residents and visitors for recreation and local transportation purposes. Bird Rides followed shortly, with its program becoming active in February. Since then, nearly 2,500 rides have been taken on the scooters. Community Development Director Lisa Beeman shares the details in this week’s Director’s Cut.
City Beat: You recently issued a report to the City Transportation Committee, which consist mostly of citizen volunteers as well as two City Council members, about the status of the electric scooter programs in Bartlesville. Can you give us rider usage details from your report?
Beeman: Reports from both companies indicate ridership has been consistently high in Bartlesville — with the exception of February, which, as you’ll recall, was extremely cold and weather prohibitive. So, with the exception of an extremely cold February, ridership of electric scooters in Bartlesville has averaged 2,459 rides per month, or 79 rides per day, and 3,249 miles per month, or 104.8 miles per day, for both recreation and transportation use. In total, riders have taken 15,149 trips and covered 19,894.22 miles on electric scooters in Bartlesville.
Are those numbers consistent with what Bird Rides and Lime Scooters expected in our community?
Representatives of both Lime and Bird have said they are happy with the current operation of their programs and plan to continue to offer this service to the public.
Are people using them recreationally or for transportation?
Preliminary reports indicate people are using them for both. I have asked each company for the breakdown of the data collected to provide an overview of the average trips by day and time of the week, as well as more detailed information on routes, origins and destinations to the extent that can be summarized by each company.
Are the scooters being used exclusively downtown? That seems to be where they are seen the most frequently.
Based upon ridership mapping, the greatest use of electric scooters is located in the downtown central business district and the surrounding area. But they are used in other parts of the city as well, and we know riders are utilizing the Pathfinder Parkway trail system to connect with other areas of town.
Who picks the scooters up each day and where are they taken?
Bird and Lime each have contract employees who retrieve the scooters. After being recharged each night (as needed), the scooters are placed each morning in locations based upon an analysis of ridership demand and usage. They City doesn’t have any involvement beyond allowing the companies to operate their programs here.
Have there been any complaints or problems with the scooters?
According to the Police Department, there have been no major issues — no accidents, injuries or citations regarding the use of electric scooters in our city. Early in the program, we did receive two complaints from people about riding electric scooters on downtown sidewalks, but the riders were unidentified. As a result of those complaints, the police were instructed to stop people who are riding on downtown sidewalks and issue warnings.
How much do these programs cost the City?
Both programs are free to taxpayers. In fact, Bird and Lime pay the City $200 per month to use our right of ways, so we actually make money from the programs.
The following summarizes the ridership data since the inception of the service on December 18, 2020 through the end of June 2021.
