Scooter rental companies showing interest in Bradenton. City wants regulation first
When rental scooters eventually make their way to Bradenton, officials say they’ll choose companies whose operations won’t cause headaches for the community.
Scooters and other motorized compact vehicles have become a popular mode of transportation in larger cities, where riders can use smartphone apps to locate and pay a fee to ride the scooter to their destination, but a host of issues might come along with them. Bradenton City Council unanimously approved a temporary moratorium to figure out how they should regulate the new service.
For the next six months, Bradenton’s legal counsel and staff will put together certain guidelines on rental scooters, such as limiting the number of scooters in the city, preventing scooters from being left lying on sidewalks and encouraging user safety while riding.
According to City Clerk Sharon Beauchamp, multiple companies have already approached the city offering to bring their scooters to Bradenton. Companies like Lyft, Bird and Lime already operate in Tampa, Orlando and Miami.
In an abundance of caution, Beauchamp recommended that the city take a step back to put “safety and general welfare” guidelines in place.
“We want to make sure we get your thoughts on how something like this might be implemented,” she told the council.
Council members welcomed the idea and noted that their previous experiences with scooters in other cities have already given them a few rules they would like to see enforced in Bradenton.
“Being a pretty boring guy, I stood and watched the front of a hotel where people were riding by and flopping scooters on the sidewalk,” said Councilman Patrick Roff, referring to an experience he had in Tampa. “They weren’t even leaning them up on the wall. By the end of the night, there was a pile.”
Councilman Gene Brown shared that he used scooters in a recent trip to Atlanta, and found them helpful but acknowledged a number of safety issues.
“The app makes you agree to wear a helmet and not ride on the sidewalks, but nobody was doing that,” Brown said.
“Even though I liked the ability to ride it around and we covered a lot of Atlanta on it, Bradenton is different and we have to be cautious in what we do,” he added.
A complete ban on riding scooters on the sidewalk should be one of the regulations, said Councilman Gene Gallo. According to City Attorney Scott Rudacille, Bradenton has discretion to enforce that kind of rule.
“That’s the type of thing we’ll be looking at,” he said.
There are a host of scooter companies that operate differently, Beauchamp said. If the council desires, it can choose to only accept business from companies that require users to dock their scooters back at designated locations.
“While there are some that have you leave the scooter wherever you’re done with it, some have corals where you don’t get your money back unless you dock it,” she said. “There are a lot of options that we’ll be bringing to you.”
