Good, they should have left when the bikes left.
Published: May. 23, 2022 at 10:47 PM CDT
KMOV Re-post
St. Louis City leaders are discontinuing the use of electric scooters in the downtown St. Louis area.
The scooters first showed up on city streets four years ago. Now, because of late-night joy rides, city leaders are no longer allowing the scooters in the downtown St. Louis area. This decision comes just a couple of days after three juveniles were shot when a fight broke out at Ninth and Chestnut. Multiple calls were made regarding nuisance behavior at several locations including City Garden, Union Station, and Ballpark Village.
“In the past few weeks, the city has instituted a 7 p.m. scooter curfew for Downtown and the Downtown West neighborhoods,” Public Safety Director Dr. Dan Isom said. “Following this incident, the Public Safety requested and the City granted, a full turn-off of scooters from the Downtown and the Downtown West until further notice”
Scooters can no longer be activated in either of those downtown neighborhoods.
On May 25, city leaders put a curfew on when the scooters could be used. Authorities said they worked with Lime and Bird, two companies that operate the scooters, to shut down service at 7 p.m. in downtown. The company Bird sent this statement to News 4 when that decision was made.
“Shared e-scooters are a critical, eco-friendly transportation alternative for many St. Louis residents, including those who rely on the service to get home from work in the evening as well as those who don’t feel safe on public transit or don’t own a car,” said Adam Davis, Senior Manager of Government Partnerships at Bird. “Bird is working with the City to address their concerns – we’ve already turned on an ID scan feature to verify riders are 18 or older and reduced speeds in the downtown area – to prevent policy decisions with sweeping repercussions for many. We hope that by working to address these concerns, the City will retract its decision to implement an unnecessarily early curfew which penalizes the tens of thousands of responsible riders who depend on our services.”
Isom said the city will meet with the scooter companies to discuss the next steps.
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