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According to local leaders, the collapse of electric scooters in Columbus is not expected to happen anytime soon.
Lime, recently known as LimeBike, is a California-based bicycle, electric bike and scooter sharing service that runs on an application that tracks GPS equipment.
Users can see the locations of nearby bicycles and can then save a bike to unlock it and pay 1 dollar for 30 minutes of use.
The company reached an agreement with Worthington in June, placing 50 bikes in the city for a six-month trial period. At the same time, Lime has put bikes in Columbus and Dublin and is planning expansion projects in central Ohio.
Lime also added electric scooters to his fleet in Columbus during the summer. Bird, a concept of scooter only, launched at the same time.
Scooters have become popular, prompting Columbus executives to introduce legislation banning scooters on sidewalks, requiring the use of helmets and specifying traffic rules to follow when driving scooters. On September 11, Columbus issued an emergency order prohibiting electric scooters from driving on sidewalks and taking other rules. Columbus Civil Service Department Director Jennifer Gallagher issued the order as city officials waited for Columbus City Council to return from her summer vacation and vote for permanent changes to the code.
"In Columbus, we are excited about the growing opportunities to navigate our great city," said Mayor Andrew Ginther. "It is our responsibility to promote these mobility options and to protect everyone who shares the road with bicycles, e-bikes and e-scooters, and our bill and our limited rules of urgency are based on these principles. goals. "
But in Worthington, Parks and Recreation Director Darren Hurley said the scooters "are not part of our deal," which expires in November.
As such, it is unlikely that they will appear in the city in 2018.
"We're just following a pedagogical approach," Hurley said. "We know little about them.I think our big concern and the question at this point is how they are regulated.It's not clear where you can and can not fly them – I think that's Some communities seem to be fighting with each other. "
Hurley said that much more research would be needed before making scooter decisions.
He said he and other city leaders were trying to figure out exactly how scooters would be regulated in Worthington. He said clarifying bicycle laws was hard enough and that scooters were "a whole other animal".
"I do not understand how what is already in the law concerns scooters," he said. "So we should certainly clarify what is already in the books and how and what applies to scooters.
"Users and non-users are not aware and educated about where they can be and how to interact with them."
Legal Director Tom Lindsey said he had not done enough research to know exactly which laws would govern scooters in Worthington. For example, he said that it was not certain that the same rules that apply to golf karts in Ohio – which must be explicitly approved by a city for use on the streets – would apply to scooters.
Just like bike sharing services, any scooter company that wanted to work in Worthington would need the approval of the city, Hurley said.
When Lime launched his scooters in Columbus, Hurley said, the company contacted Worthington to see if it would work in the city. He added that representatives of Lime had discussed with the Advisory Board the bicycle and pedestrians.
Although the group thought "it might be cool," Hurley said that virtually no one was "comfortable going to scooters" yet.
"They expressed some interest in knowing if we would be open to scooters," he said. "Our position was that we spent a lot of time getting community participation on the bikes and we did not want to throw the scooters when they were not part of this process."
Kyle Bivenour, a resident of Clintonville and Lime's operations manager for Columbus, declined to comment on the subject. Lime company spokeswoman Emma Green did not respond to requests for comment.
Hurley said that he did not rule out a future where lime or other electric scooters would come to Worthington. But the first priority would be to evaluate the bike sharing program during the winter. After that, everything is possible with the right preparation.
"Maybe it will become a point where the introduction of a scooter is a good idea," Hurley said. "But we have not crossed this threshold yet."
Rick Rouan of The Columbus Dispatch contributed to this story.
@ThisWeekAndrew
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