JANESVILLE — Bird scooters could again be zipping around downtown Janesville this year after the city says thousands of people tried out the electric two-wheelers as entertainment and to make quick jaunts down city streets.
As downtown remains locked under snow and ice, the city is preparing a new memorandum of understanding that might allow Bird scooters to return this spring. The pilot program last summer and fall netted 6,493 rides, mostly downtown.
A handful of people, including a woman who said she got a concussion while riding one of the e-scooters downtown after drinking, said the city might consider curtailing ridership at night.
But a city survey of residents and businesses showed a mostly favorable response.
Erin Davis, assistant to the city manager, was one of the city officials involved this fall in wrapping up up the pilot program with a calculation of ridership based on Bird Scooter data.
That study went along with public engagement forums and a survey, which netted a handful of suggestions for possible changes should the council and Bird Scooter agree on a plan to bring the two-wheelers back this spring.
The Bird data, according to a city report released last week, shows that people who used the rechargeable rental e-scooters last summer and fall on average put about 1.8 miles per trip. That amounts to about a $2.80 ride, not unlike the cost of an Uber or taxi ride.
Much of the ridership centered around downtown Janesville within the city’s restaurant and entertainment district. In fact, the data shows ridership tended to spike on weekends and ievenings, with nearly half of all the rides taken between the hours of 6 and 10 p.m.
Davis said the city was surprised to see ridership peak during evening hours, but she said their use also came during daytime hours as people who work downtown — apparently, particularly downtown attorneys — used the scooters to jaunt from their offices to lunch or court appointments.
The scooters are rented using an app that scans the riders’ debit card. For now, riders aren’t required to show or scan a driver’s license or ID, a practice which the city does not appear to want changed if the two-wheelers return.
Davis said much of the use is casual or based on one-off use for temporary convenience, although there’s some indication people use the vehicles to tour downtown or sightsee from a different vantage point.
“One time, I didn’t feel like walking up Courthouse Hill so I took a scooter,” Davis said. “I found out they’re a lot of fun.”
An initial memorandum to set up a pilot program holds the rider, but not the city of Janesville or Bird Scooter or its local agent, responsible for accidents or damage by the scooters.
As a whole, the scooters travel at a relatively low speed, but they operate fast enough that some riders have learned how to throttle their rubber wheels in a way that can mar pavement with tire marks.
Some downtown business operators complained last year that riders were revving up the scooters late at night, and purposely leaving tire burnouts that were marring newly-stamped city sidewalks and walkways along West Milwaukee and River Streets in the riverfront area.
The recent report indicated most of the burnout marks have washed away by rain, and the city intends to check for any lingering tire marks downtown after the winter snow and ice melts. Bird officials said they’re considering sitting the the scooters downtown with tires that can’t visibly mark pavement.
In written surveys this fall, one visitor wrote that she was intoxicated downtown with her friends when they decided to rent Bird scooters and ride them. The woman said in the survey she was injured while riding.
“It was very late; I believe it was after 11 p.m. or midnight. It was an accident,” Davis said. ““I appreciate their honesty that they were intoxicated.”
Davis said she doesn’t believe the incident involved an immediate public safety or police response, but she said the woman’s feedback is that the scooters shouldn’t be used after dark, later at night or by bar or restaurant patrons who may have had too much to drink.
Others responding to the survey wondered if certain spots downtown, including along the riverfront, could be geofenced so that scooters can’t be ridden there, particularly at certain times of day or night.
Bird Scooter in one circumstance indicated that it had geofenced off an area around one business storefront whose operator said they didn’t like the scooters parked nearby because they could pose a trip hazard for pedestrians.
