Cedar Rapids to consider extending contract for electric bike, scooter rentals

VeoRide scooters await their riders May perhaps 7, 2021, at Metropolis Hall in Cedar Rapids. (The Gazette)

City Council member Ashley Vanorny attempts out a VeoRide scooter May well 7, 2021, at Metropolis Hall in Cedar Rapids. (The Gazette)

CEDAR RAPIDS — In advance of Cedar Rapids brings back a well-known scooter and bike rental system for a fourth 12 months, the concern going through the Metropolis Council is whether to permit the units stay or buy the vendor to scoot.

The council is slated Tuesday to think about a 3-calendar year deal extension with Chicago-based mostly VeoRide, the vendor that owns and operates hundreds of electrical-assisted bikes and scooters — a application that has faced scrutiny by some citizens and elected officials who are wary of the disorderly and unsafe use of the electrical devices in downtown and encompassing districts which includes MedQuarter, NewBo, Czech Village and Kingston Village.

With deal revisions proposed to deal with these fears, the council might get a wait around-and-see technique to Okay the modifications and in the future evaluation irrespective of whether the adjustments tackle the concerns.

The plan provides hundreds of bikes, standup scooters and sit-down scooters to town for people today to unlock and trip working with a cellular application for a rate, which varies dependent on the device. All-around the United States, and in Cedar Rapids, the general public is break up above the electric scooters — some appreciate the reasonably priced, enjoyable way to get close to city, while other people are infuriated with riders who disregard pedestrians and targeted traffic as they whiz all over.

Ridership more than the a long time has observed an uptick, specially with the black-and-teal electrical-assisted scooters — coming as extra men and women have sought outside recreation amid the COVID-19 pandemic. But some council members have bristled at the enhance in recognition — using difficulty with the scooters cluttering downtown sidewalks and unsafe or unlawful riding of the gadgets, at times by youth who are too younger to work the scooters still regulate to secure a established of wheels in any case.

Two small children under age 12 past year ended up taken care of for lifestyle-threatening injuries at the University of Iowa Hospitals and Clinics following they have been struck by a car on Mount Vernon Street SE although riding the scooters, irrespective of remaining beneath the using age of 18.

Proposed modifications to the deal, awarded to the vendor in 2019, contain technological know-how requiring consumers to upload their authorities-issued identification to make certain they are of legal driving age month-to-month checking of law enforcement phone calls for provider by the vendor to regulate operations as needed and lessening the time for gadgets getting parked exterior of marked areas from 72 to 48 hours.

Other variations contain:

• A quiz at the starting of each driving time to provide basic safety training for all consumers

• Further specified parking places in strategic areas all over the riding zone

• Particular functions will be geofenced to bar customers from riding as a result of chaotic pedestrian places

• Geofencing and verbal audio warning technological innovation will be utilised to deter their use on sidewalks, in addition to signage currently positioned

The council also recently accepted updates to the municipal code regulating bicycles and micromobility units to aid police enforce their suitable operation within just Cedar Rapids.

Also, the city’s communications division is developing a micromobility safety training campaign to remind individuals of not driving on sidewalks, the limit of 1 rider for every machine, good parking methods and VeoRide’s fantastic process.

Some cities about the country have various distributors, this kind of as Bird and Lime, but Cedar Rapids in 2019 awarded a deal to this single seller to function the method at no cost to the metropolis. Cedar Rapids did make a 1-time payment of $65,000 to VeoRide in 2020 to assist the software. This arrangement has confined the variety of bikes and scooters and offered the town a lot more control, in comparison with other municipalities with several sellers and hundreds if not hundreds of the devices.

The pilot system began with 150 e-bikes and only a couple dozen scooters, previous city planner Sylvia Brueckert explained to the council Enhancement Committee in August. That is now reversed, so there had been about 250 scooters and in excess of 80 e-bikes very last period.

Council member Ann Poe, who has indicated she’s not a lover of the scooters, expressed worries about the basic safety and stated she’d viewed poor driving behavior. For occasion, she claimed observing a lady riding all-around with a newborn strapped to her body.

Poe experienced explained she would have liked for council to be involved in the conversations of bringing a lot more scooters to town, due to the fact the application mostly centered on bikes when the city released it.

“Would that have transformed the perspective of council in agreeing to this? I really don’t know, mainly because we never ever had that discussion,” Poe reported.

Even so, Poe explained Monday she desires to give VeoRide a probability to put into action adjustments in the renewed deal for a year.

“They’ve created a fantastic-faith work in producing those improvements, so only time will inform,” Poe claimed. “If they adhere to the changes that are staying manufactured, then they will work out extremely very well for our local community and persons use them for transportation.”

Micromobility solutions also are embedded in the Community Local climate Action Plan the council adopted in September to shift toward carbon neutrality and improve neighborhood resiliency to human-brought on world wide warming. The electric-assisted gadgets supply a far more eco-friendly way to vacation all over downtown for recreational use or transportation to get the job done.

At the August assembly, council member Ashley Vanorny identified the want to work on security fears but encouraged her council colleagues to retain an open mind about the equipment.

“I do see hordes of folks who are seriously gravitating towards this, because it does offer a little something that they did not have ahead of,” Vanorny stated. “ … There are a great deal of persons who do not have yet another method of transportation that this is the way they are commuting about our city.”

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