By Wafir Salih | [email protected]
Bird Global, a serious operator of electrical scooters within the United States, filed for Chapter 11 chapter on Dec. 20, 2023, to restructure its funds. At the time of publication, the inventory value has dropped to five cents per share, a large decline from its peak at $259 in March 2021.
Bird can be the biggest scooter operator in Alexandria, with a cap of 450 scooters and 150 e-bikes.
“We are making progress toward profitability and aim to accelerate that progress by right-sizing our capital structure through this restructuring,” Bird’s Interim CEO Michael Washinushi mentioned in a press launch. “We remain focused on our mission to make cities more livable by using micromobility to reduce car usage, traffic and carbon emissions.”
Bird suffered a collection of setbacks previous to this transfer. Founder Travis VanderZanden left the corporate solely on June 30, 2023, after beforehand stepping down from his roles as president and CEO in 2022. Initially valued at $2.5 billion, Bird’s inventory started to free fall quickly after going public in 2021 with no signal of recovering, which in the end led to the corporate being delisted from the New York Stock Exchange in September 2023.
Sean Martin, shared mobility planner for Alexandria’s Transportation & Environmental Services Department, mentioned he’s conscious of Bird’s struggles.
“Bird has been with us pretty much since the beginning. … It was a bit of a surprise [but] they [gave] us a little bit of advance notice,” Martin mentioned. “I’ve been in communication with them regarding their future plans and how they went back to the city, and they’ve reassured me that they do not intend to change up their operations at all.”
Alexandria currently allows as much as 1,200 scooters and 800 e-bikes. The three firms at present working within the metropolis, along with Bird, embody Lime, with a cap of 205 scooters and 100 e-bikes; Superpedestrian/Link, with a cap of 285 scooters; and Spin, which has a cap of 260 scooters.
Bird is just not the one firm to face troubles out there. Spin, which fell underneath Bird’s umbrella following an acquisition final fall, has additionally filed for chapter alongside Bird. Superpedestrian lately ceased operations within the U.S. on Dec. 31, 2023, with management expressing internally they deliberate to recall all scooters by the tip of 2023.
According to a Dec. 15, 2023, report from TechCrunch, Superpedestrian Director of U.S. Market Operations Alexander Berg notified employees on a Zoom name that the corporate could be closing down as a consequence of monetary points. With solely 18 months available on the market and having raised $125 million in fairness, many believed Superpedestrian was poised to be successful, which makes the sudden closure all of the extra stunning.
The Times has reached out to Martin with comply with up on whether or not Superpedestrian has recalled scooters from the town, however didn’t obtain a response by our publication deadline.
Public opinion on dockless mobility stays largely divided. Users tout these gadgets as an easy-to-use, eco-friendly different to vehicles. Critics, nevertheless, argue the scooters might pose a hazard to pedestrians, particularly once they’re parked improperly, and to customers who trip with out helmets.
Shawn Eyer, a nonprofit skilled in Alexandria, is an avid rider of e-scooters.
“I’ll admit I could have bought three or four scooters with the money I’ve spent on Bird, but it’s very convenient not to have to stop and lock it up,” Eyer mentioned.
Eyer mentioned these gadgets have been a giant assist to him ever since he first began utilizing them in 2017.
“[On] a given day, it’s very common I have three or four places to be in a one-mile radius, and the scooters are extremely efficient. I would say more so than driving a passenger car to those destinations, both in terms of time spent parking and even in terms of navigating the streets,” Eyer mentioned. “I am certain that on an annual basis, the scooters are saving me full workdays of time. And for someone like me, that’s very important. I need to be efficient, and I need to be as productive as possible.”
On the opposite facet of the talk, there are numerous who say they don’t like e-scooters, usually as a consequence of security considerations. In a letter to the editor printed by the Washington Post, Washington, D.C. resident Elaine Zuppe shared a recent expertise the place she was injured as a consequence of a parked e-scooter.
“I was walking on 11th Street NW turning right on E Street NW this month when I tripped over the back wheel of an improperly parked scooter and literally went flying. I suffered bruises to my arm, chest and ribs,” Zuppe wrote. “For residents such as me, a woman in her mid-70s, that fall could have been deadly. I enjoy the life of [the district], but the scooters are making it difficult to stay.”
The Times noticed an analogous cut up of opinions when asking residents for his or her views on Nextdoor. One consumer commented how she enjoys “seeing the glee on people’s faces while they are riding these scooters around town,” to which one other consumer replied, expressing her frustration over how briskly riders go and the way “they don’t even park them on the side of the sidewalk or road. Just drop and go. No regard for people or other people’s property.”
In a September 2023 report from the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission, which compiled information from 2017 by way of 2022 analyzing accidents and deaths from micromobility gadgets, there have been about 111 deaths linked to e-scooters, with dockless/rental e-scooters making up 18 of these deaths. The report additionally discovered that e-scooters led to about 169,300 injury-related emergency room visits, with dockless/rental e-scooters contributing to 29,200 of these visits. The report cautions that the numbers associated to accidents could also be underestimated, as among the e-scooters concerned might not have been recognized on the time as dockless/rental by medical personnel.
Inappropriate parking is a typical sentiment shared by critics. Even as a fan of the scooters, Eyer admits that riders may do higher with regards to parking, however pushes again on the framework of the critique.
“Let’s say some wonderful summer day when people are out scootering, are the number of scooters parked inappropriately that block sidewalks or bike lanes or any other motive mode of personal travel – does that number exceed the number of automobiles that block something on that day in the city of Alexandria?” Eyer mentioned. “It’s impossible for that answer to be that the scooters are blocking more people than the cars. So even that argument is rather weak.”
On Dec. 21, 2023, Wired launched an article breaking down the tough situations fleet managers for Bird have endured over the previous a number of years. Eyer mentioned he was disenchanted when he examine how Bird allegedly handled their fleet managers.
“The article that I read characterized Bird’s practices as extremely cavalier toward the people who actually keep the fleet of scooters running,” Eyer mentioned. “These are contractors who invest in vans and equipment, and the capacity to repair the scooters all falls on them. I was dismayed when I read about those practices.”
In a Dec. 21, 2023, article by The Verge, transportation editor Andrew J. Hawkins argued that, regardless of Bird submitting for chapter and Superpedestrian shutting down, the micromobility business is “doing just fine.” Hawkins argued Bird’s issues are reflective of their monetary mismanagement and never the business as an entire, citing the National Association of City Transportation Officials’ 2022 report the place the information confirmed that dockless mobility journeys have largely been on the rise post-pandemic.
Eyer expressed an analogous sentiment to Hawkins.
“I can’t weigh in on any particular company’s viability, but I believe that it should be possible to structure a viable business model around app-driven e-scooter rentals,” Eyer mentioned.
Still, the long run for dockless mobility stays unclear. Paris banned rental e-scooters on Sept. 1, 2023. San Diego, which had 4 e-scooter operators only a 12 months in the past, has since seen an exodus of those micromobility firms. Bird was the final firm to go away in November 2023, citing excessive fines and “onerous regulations,” based on Maggie Hoffman, Bird’s vice chairman of metropolis progress and technique, who spoke with the San Francisco Chronicle.
The metropolis of Alexandria hopes to maintain e-scooters in place, significantly due to the Vision Zero initiative. The Vision Zero metropolis initiative was applied in December 2017 with a acknowledged purpose of eliminating all deaths and extreme accidents associated to visitors by 2028. The metropolis authorities’s official web page notes, “over 150 people were killed or severely injured in traffic crashes in Alexandria between 2017 and 2021” whereas stating that every one these deaths have been preventable.
Permits for the 4 e-scooter firms working in Alexandria are legitimate till March 31, 2024.
Martin mentioned e-scooters could be a key device within the metropolis’s arsenal to scale back these visitors associated deaths.
“[Vision Zero is] a commitment to achieve a transportation system that has no traffic-related fatalities or serious injuries and e-scooters and e-bikes definitely play a role in that,” Martin mentioned. “There’s always going to be concerns with safety for all road users, but scooters [are] definitely an important part in achieving that idea of Vision Zero.”
