Portland Electric Scooters: Bird Plans Wednesday City Hall Rally

PORTLAND, OR – While Portland won't decide until next year whether to return E-Scooters to the city's streets, one of the three companies involved in the test project this year wants people to know they are ready to come back. Bird is having a noon rally at City Hall on Wednesday.

Portland had a 120-day trial run to see if the scooters would be a good fit for the city.

The trial ended at midnight on Nov. 20.

During that time, people took more than 676,000 rides that covered more than 775,000 miles.. Since the city took in 25 cents for each ride, that meant the city received at least $169,000 from the experiment.

Bird believes that those numbers indicate enough support for the scooters to bring them back. At the rally, which may also involve representatives from other companies and groups, people will be asked to sign a petition.

"Let's show City Council how much we appreciate their work making Portland a leader in sustainable transportation," the company wrote in an email sent to Portland residents.

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"We hope we can get scooters back on the road as soon as possible so we can continue to have more convenient, environmentally-friendly, and affordable transportation options."

During the pilot program, city officials said that while the scooters received a lot of use, there were also concerns.

Officials also determined there needs to be more education because only 51 percent thought that riding in parks was illegal and only 34 percent thought riding on waterfront trails was illegal.

They also found that 6 percent of users had said they had decided to get rid of their cars and another 16 percent had considered it.

PBOT also discovered that the city took some time getting used to having the scooters around.
Over the first three weeks of the trial, the number of complaints rose steadily, reaching 417 a week before dropping.

Photo via Bird.