Lafayette delivers promises of impoundment

The reason is not to get rid of scooters without a dock permanently.

"We are excited about the opportunity to welcome them to Lafayette," said Patty Payne, Marketing Manager for the City. "We understand that it's something that some people really want."

Instead, the city is asking Bird for time – perhaps several months – to develop a regulation and pilot program "to address all types of personal transportation vehicles and sharing operations."

"It's been three and a half weeks and they have not met yet," said Margy Deverall, Bike / Pedestrian / Mobility Coordinator at the Lafayette Redevelopment Office. "We think we need time to sort things out."

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The messages left to Bird's representatives were not immediately returned on Thursday. Deverall said the city had not received an answer either.

Bird scooters are touted as a means of transporting the "last mile". The company allows customers to use a smartphone app to find a scooter and pay an initial fee of $ 1, plus 20 cents per minute, to ride. The system allows customers to leave the scooters where their ride ends.

The letter called Bird for "scooter users driving illegally on our sidewalks in downtown" and scooters parked on our sidewalks in a manner that violated the guidelines of the Americans with Disabilities Act.

"We have also received numerous complaints from residents, business owners and business owners, puzzled by our lack of knowledge and our careless approach to the entire operation," reads the letter from Deverall.

Mr. Deverall said the city was following the example of other cities, including Indianapolis, which had asked scooter companies to back down until they could find ways to manage it. the system. She said Lafayette was working with West Lafayette and Purdue University, where scooters are increasingly used, to write unified rules for Bird and other carpool scooter companies taking into account the market. .

Erik Carlson, development director for West Lafayette, said West Lafayette had met this week with an Indianapolis law firm representing Bird.

Carlson said West Lafayette was not on the road to retirement and discontinuance – even though the West Lafayette police had spent the first weekend collecting scooters left on sidewalks and other random places. Carlson said West Lafayette was hoping to keep the scooters on the street – "We are trying not to be the bad guy here," he said – while forcing Bird to comply with some regulations in force since the scooters arrived.

Carlson said the city wanted assurances on ways to crack down on dangerous constituencies; "Geo-fencing" to keep scooters out of the way where they might pose a problem ("I'm thinking of the breakfast club here," he said); and establish direct lines of communication with Bird representatives, difficult to organize last month.

He added that if these discussions were unsuccessful, West Lafayette could also ask Bird to temporarily halt its operations.

"None of us are against this means of transportation," Carlson said. "And you should not be able to take a Bird at Purdue and go to downtown Lafayette, being subject to three regulations. We just need time to coordinate all that and put it in place. "

In Indianapolis, city officials asked Bird and Lime, a rival company, to take the scooters out of town this summer, allowing them to return after the city created a licensing and application system. The companies returned on September 4, with a system that provides $ 15,000 in operating costs and $ 1 a day per scooter.

Deverall said Lafayette was reviewing how the deal worked for Indianapolis. She said the city is also looking at what other communities are doing.

In Purdue, Aaron Madrid, the university's alternative transportation coordinator, began confiscating illegally parked scooters on campus – virtually all those who are not on a bike rack – the week they arrived. He added that the university, which recently signed an exclusive contract with a bike sharing company, was not notified of the scooters and was not able to control them.

"They are still fun," said Madrid. "But they are always annoying on my part."

Madrid said it has about 40 scooters locked up on campus. He added that none of Bird's offices had come to ask them. He said that many of Bird's independent contractors, who are paid to track and load the scooters, have come, attracted by dozens of icons that appear on the smartphone app. Madrid said all those people left empty-handed, unwilling to pay the $ 15 impoundment fee for a scooter that would only pay a few extra dollars for reloading services.

Alex Mason, of West Lafayette, said he has used Bird scooters over and over, even using the app to get a free helmet from the company. Low vision prevents him from driving a car. A plane trip from his home in the New Chauncey neighborhood in West Lafayette to downtown Lafayette costs less than taking the car by car via Uber or Lyft. He said the comparison is $ 3.50 for Bird versus $ 8 for an Uber or Lyft.

"I will certainly miss them," said Mason. "I just hope things are going well and that they can stay one way or the other."