Scooters from Lime have returned to Warner Center corners after disappearing since the onset of the coronavirus pandemic.The situation in the San Fernando Valley reflects the challenges app-activated dockless scooters have experienced generally. In the last year, industry leaders Bird and Lime have entered a survival mode, with the downsizing of staff, the erasure of their presence in certain cities and losing millions.
Last March amid the outbreak, Lime suspended bike and scooter service in San Francisco, Seattle and several European cities, quickly extending the suspension to include all of its North American markets and 22 countries. “We are worried about the cities we love,” Lime Chief Executive Brad Bao posted at the time. “For now, we’re pausing Lime service to help people stay put and stay safe.”According to data from Earnest Research based on credit card and debit card expenditures, spending on scooter rental services plummeted to nearly zero as ridership evaporated overnight during the pandemic’s early period.
The avoidance of sidewalk scooters stems from the contagious nature of the virus.“No one really wants to pick up something someone else has used, no matter what it is,” Sherman Oaks-based transit consultant Richard Katz, a former politician with an extensive background in Metropolitan Transit Authority related legislation, told the Business Journal.
Representatives from Lime and Bird did not return calls for comment from the Business Journal.Pre-COVID pushback Even before the pandemic, the public expressed wariness about scooters as public transit, with concerns about the transportation modes dumped in public rights of way blocking pedestrians and wheelchair users. “There was pushback from the cities, pushed by the residents to do a better job of organizing them and keeping track,” Katz said.
In September 2018, Woodland Hills Homeowners Association members met to discuss scooters, which threatened to take up bike path space and roam the pedestrian pathways of Warner Center and Pierce College. This was shortly after the Los Angeles City Council unanimously approved regulations for a one-year pilot program that effectively took thousands of the scooters off L.A.’s city streets.
The residents asked L.A. Department of Transportation Planning associate Lameese Chang and Jeff Jacobberger, legislative deputy to Councilman Bob Blumenfield, about plans to extend the current bike path along Winnetka Boulevard, partly as a response to growing scooter traffic.
What the Woodland Hills locals were concerned about was the vulnerability of scooter users. Katz told the Business Journal about how distracted many e-scooter drivers can be, with a false sense of security that has inspired a “slack attitude.” “People were riding without helmets and on a phone,” Katz said. “They think, ‘Well, I’m not in a car so I’m not driving in traffic.’ But you are in traffic.” The road ahead As with many industries, scooters face a huge post-pandemic uncertainty.
Katz considers e-scooters a platform which, to a large extent, needs sunshine. For example, the Western states and Florida are more likely to encourage scooter ridership than the East Coast where a storm can quickly roll in. Universities that function as nearly self-contained cities are also apt for the technology.“(California State University – Northridge) has 55,000 people a day that go to the campus one way or another who could use the scooters to get around campus, the commercial areas for shopping, for meals, etc.,” Katz continued.
Moreover, Katz believes the future of e-scooters in the San Fernando Valley and beyond may hinge on what degree work-at-home and remote employees become a permanent part of the economy.
“People are working from home or from a remote location,” he said. “People won’t want to drive.” While that might stimulate e-scooter ridership, the other side of the coin could be that the recent trend of young adults moving out of dense urban areas for the suburbs may also upend e-scooter usage, which is largely concentrated in bustling downtowns – including Warner Center, currently booming with development in an effort to become the “downtown of the San Fernando Valley,” according to Blumenfield and the Warner Center 2035 Specific Plan he has championed.“There are places where it will work,” Katz said. “Much of it depends on if they (scooter companies) have enough capitalization to last and turn the corner.”
Scooters’ Slow Rollout in Valley’s Downtown
