Crowd To Rally Against Santa Monica's Scooter Rental Crackdown

SANTA MONICA, CA – Supporters of transportation options like Bird and Lime scooters will rally at Santa Monica City Hall Tuesday at 5 p.m. in preparation for a City Council vote on a pilot program that would impact scooter rental companies. The rally is meant to urge elected officials to rethink its proposed crackdown on the scooter-sharing programs that exploded across the city over the last year.

Santa Monica City Council is preparing to vote Tuesday on a 16-month pilot program that would start Sept. 17 to rein in scooter rental companies such as Bird or the newly-introduced Lime scooters, according to the Los Angeles Times.

Rally attendees want to show officials and City staff that "they support common sense legislation that makes everyday commutes easier, and does not limit access to sustainable transportation options," according to a Bird press release. But the proposal includes higher permitting fees, a cap on the number of scooters allowed in the city and tougher rules that would result in the company losing permits to work in the city if they are broken, the newspaper reported.

Representatives of Climate Action Santa Monica, Santa Monica City Councilmembers Terry O’Day and Tony Vazquez, Mayor Pro Tempore Gleam Davis, and Bird Chief Legal Officer David Estrada will be attending the rally, urging the Santa Monica City Council to protect access to sustainable transportation, instead of limiting it, the press release said.

"More than one third of car trips are less than two miles. More than 60 percent of carbon emissions in Santa Monica come from transportation," the Bird press release said. "Dockless, shared-use, zero-emission transportation can help people opt out of car travel, especially for short trips."

Earlier this year, local officials passed an emergency ordinance after the Bird start-up inundated the city with scooters last year. The ordinance required that the company apply for a conditional vending permit that starts at $50 a year, and that the company pay a $60 impound fee for each scooter that was an immediate hazard or blocked access to buildings, the Los Angeles Times reported.

The proposed pilot program, however, requires scooter companies to pay the city a $20,000 annual operating fee, plus an annual fee of $130 per scooter. Although it's unclear how many scooters are in operation within Santa Monica, Bird had cited numbers between 1,000 and 2,000, city officials told Los Angeles Times.

“Climate Action Santa Monica supports the City and its mobility staff in conducting a robust pilot for a safe and sustainable multi-modality transportation system, offering truly sustainable choices to all residents in all neighborhoods," Cris Gutierrez, co-chair of Climate Action Santa Monica, said. "We need a multi-modality mobility system to advance carbon neutrality and climate resiliency in order to confront our climate crisis with the sense of urgency this demands.”

The rally for sustainable transportation in Santa Monica will be Tuesday, June 12 at 5 p.m. at the Santa Monica City Hall, located at 1685 Main St., Santa Monica.

Photo courtesy of Bird