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JAMESTOWN, NY (WNY News Now) — The City of Jamestown could soon be seeing a new type of vehicle braving the roads, thanks to a new service that would deploy electric bikes and scooters.
Addressing mobility options within city limits, lawmakers are looking at working with Bird Bikeshare to set up affordable transportation.
By downloading their app, anyone 18 and up would be able to use this new service.
“This goes in line with our much larger plan of Complete Streets, Vision Zero, and really more micro mobility,“ explained Mayor Eddie Sundquist. “As you all know, not everybody in the city can afford a car, but there is a unique opportunity to provide some of these additional mobility options in the non winter times.”
Local leaders would designate areas for the rides to operate in. If a rider leaves the zone, the bike or scooter will shut down. Furthermore, the system would shut down after midnight.
“The scoters and the bikes are GPS according,“ stated Bird Representative, Jeremy Lynch. “It’s down to about two feet, so I know where that scooter is at all times. You can put it in your basement, and I know where that is. You can’t knock the brain off of it, it’s internal, there are no external screws or wires or things like that. There’s really no way to disable the GPS in either of the vehicles
To comply with New York State law, each bike and scooter is restricted to 15 miles per hour.
“At the beginning what happens is, you’ll see a lot of people go off for 15-20 minute rides, and it’s fun,“ explained Lynch. “I’m 56 and I still love to ride, but once you kind of get past that honeymoon stage as it were, what happens is that those ride times actually come down. So where you’ll see rides basically between four and eight minutes, generally is the time. And what that means is that people are actually them to go for a specific location, like they’re going to work, or going back home, or going to lunch.”
Each ride costs $1 to get started and close to $0.50 every minute after that, with different community pricing discounts.
“They actually provide all of the capital cost and they manage the program,” stated Mayor Sundquist. “And in return the city receives a financial portion of each ride.”
If approved by Jamestown’s city council and the city’s legal team, a pilot program could begin this summer.
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