Austin transportation officials want to expedite a pilot program that would set guidelines for dockless electric scooter and bike startups that operate in the city.
The move came Monday after LimeBike launched its electric scooters in downtown Austin in response to Bird deploying its scooters a week earlier without facing any fines or penalties from the city.
"In order to forestall a predictable and unmanageable swamping of our streets with thousands of vehicles, ATD recommends a more nimble response than our previously expressed pilot timeframe," wrote Austin Transportation Department Director Robert Spillar.
He recommended starting the project May 1, if city council members approve it at their April 26 meeting. Meanwhile, the city's mobility council plans to discuss dockless scooters and bikes at its meeting Tuesday afternoon.
The City of Austin has had plans to create a dockless bicycles pilot program for more than two months. But that was apparently too slow for Bird, which launched its scooters April 5.
After sending a complaint letter to the city about Bird’s apparent flaunting of Austin’s dockless pilot project, LimeBike on Monday morning deployed its dockless electric scooters (and apparently a few bikes, too) throughout downtown and East and South Austin.
Austin doesn’t have any laws to penalize dockless transportation companies at the moment, although it has impounded at least 55 Bird scooters.
It wasn’t immediately clear if the city had already impounded LimeBike scooters found in city right-of-way — but at least one photo on Reddit seemed to indicate authorities were ticketing or impounding a LimeBike scooter.
Under the proposed pilot project, companies would pay a $30 permit for each device that would help the city pay for management, education and parking. Each company would be limited to 500 devices in city limits. And the companies would have to share some travel data and list any known injuries or incidents.
"This approach will encourage the private operators to act responsibly in Austin, work with the City and communities regarding education, safe operations, and bike/scooter parking," Spillar wrote in his memo to Austin City Council and the city manager. "This approach would also provide for safety operations (make-safe/impound when necessary), inspections, management, and data collection to inform Mayor and Council of the knowledge gained during each 6-month term."
It wasn’t clear what the penalties for violating these rules would be — or if the city will allow LimeBike and Bird to take part in the pilot project, given that they seem to have defied the city’s wishes (even if the city doesn’t have any laws to enforce them).
The news came as several other cities engaged in their own debates about how to manage dockless devices as companies deploy their bikes and scooters across the nation.
On Monday, for example, San Francisco's city attorney issued a cease and desist order for the unlawful renting of scooters in the city and it the city seized at least 66 of them. The orders went to LimeBike, Bird and Spin, according to the San Francisco Examiner.
Meanwhile, Santa Monica, Calif., officials approved a new law that lets the city impound the scooters. That move followed a court battle with Bird that led to a $300,000 settlement.
