Speaker 1: (00:00)
You’ve probably seen electric scooters and bikes for rent anywhere in San Diego. You might even have taken one for a fuss, but did you know there is a licensing system that every operator must apply for for the producer of the Monday edition, Emelyn? will begin to limit the number of operators and e-devices in the city. Muto starts with the pros and cons of renting these electric bikes and scooters.
Speaker 2: (00:31)
So in the city of San Diego, we’re really trying to reduce our greenhouse gas emissions in line with our climate change plan by increasing mobility options, um, mobility options that are green and sustainable, low-carbon and convenient, and safe ways for people to get around, be it for work or pleasure or just for charging, as with many new mobility technologies or devices there is a learning for, for the users and working with our scooter riders providing educational information for users to adjust the speeds on devices for first time users . We can also work with the operators on the number of scooters used to limit the number of scooters in the city and to adapt the use to demand and not to exceed it. Now operators like Bird Wheels and Lyft are expanding their fleets with new equipment and more of it.
Speaker 2: (01:36)
How does the city ensure that there aren’t too many bikes and scooters on the streets? Yes sir. So right now we’re moving forward with our first call for proposals for scooter operations in the city of San Diego. Before that, we were in an approval process in which our development services receive applications every two years. So that’s so many operators in January and June interested in running as many devices as they want in the city of San Diego. Usually they make these decisions based on market demand and usage. As part of the tender, we are limiting the number of operators from unlimited to two to four operators and a maximum number of scooters of 8,000 scooters within the city of San Diego. And which companies have currently allowed scooters and bicycles in the city? We currently have six operators in the city of San Diego.
Speaker 2: (02:37)
We have bird lift, Lime Link VO and bikes. And are they scattered or are they clustered in certain areas? We tend to use scooters and bikes in certain areas of the city, usually where we have, um, a lot of work. So in the city center, as well as relaxation along the beach areas from Ocean Beach to LA Jolla and then in and around our universities. So near USC, UCLA and San Diego. Speaking of university scooters, they were previously banned on the SDSU campus, but now they’re back. San Diego can both make their own rules on campus as to how they might conduct geo-fences or whether to ban them on campus. However, the use of scooters within the city of San Diego stems from our permitting process as it is difficult to restrict operations between the university property and the adjacent urban property.
Speaker 2: (03:48)
Um, so we expect that if a scooter or bicycle operator is on a university campus to be fully legal within the city of San Diego, why did the city decide to limit the number of businesses and East scooters and bicycles? The city has done an extensive analysis of over 35 cities across the country to better understand what shared mobility device programs look like in other cities, how we can learn from other practices, uh, where enforcement or operations, or even technology, uh , different from what we have here in the city of San Diego. In the city of San Diego, we’ve identified two to four operators as the best solution for our city, giving us the ability to have competition and technology and tariffs and equity programs, and then enable partnerships that allow us to have better visibility and data management the scooter operator, city-wide.
Speaker 2: (04:52)
We saw fewer scooters on the street during the pandemic and now we are seeing them coming back. Do you see an increasing demand for E-bikes from East Scooters in the future? Yes sir. We’ve definitely seen a decline in operations, um, from both users and scooter operators, but we’ve also seen demand go back to exactly where it was before the pandemic. Given the popularity and demand for e-bikes and the personal e-bike market, I expect the demand will continue to grow as we begin to see a mixed fleet of bikes and scooters and other mobility technologies
Speaker 1: (05:32)
That was Alyssa Muto, the director of sustainability and mobility for the city of San Diego, who spoke to producer Emelyn Mohebi for lunch.
