Fairfax County’s solely electrical scooter supplier will proceed working even after filing for bankruptcy final month.
The firm, Bird, can even preserve its scooters in Fairfax City, the place it’s certainly one of two corporations in a pilot program.
“We expect to continue operations in Fairfax and Fairfax County as normal and we look forward to working with the city and county administration as a partner into the future,” a Bird consultant wrote in an e mail to FFXnow.
The county and metropolis have each been instructed by the corporate that service will go on. Bird has permission to function 300 units in Fairfax County, whereas the City of Fairfax typically permits as much as 250 units per firm.
Bird and Superpedestrian’s LINK acquired permission to convey their merchandise to Fairfax County in July 2021 following a November 2019 county board ordinance regulated shared mobility units. Superpedestrian just lately stopped all U.S. operations, although it had already been dropped from the county’s operator checklist after failing to renew its allow in January 2022.
The county doesn’t seem to have any new companions within the offing in the mean time.
“Anyone may submit a Shared Mobility Device Operator Permit Application for review,” wrote Rebecca Makely, director of the county’s division of cable and shopper providers, in an e mail to FFXnow.
Bird’s shared mobility units noticed practically 20,000 rides between July and December 2023, in response to information supplied by the county, with a mean journey distance of simply over a mile throughout that interval.
FairfaxCity approved a shared mobility pilot program of its personal in May 2019, however has but to ascertain a everlasting program. Bird and San Francisco-based Lime are at the moment approved beneath the pilot, which the town council unanimously voted to extend by way of June 30, 2024 at a Jan. 9 assembly.
City employees expects to develop a proposal for a extra everlasting program by the point this extension ends.
“There was a lot of bumpiness during Covid, but a lot of the operations and usage have stabilized, and we feel like we can now begin to transition to a more permanent, long-term program,” Chloe Ritter, the town’s multimodal transportation planner, mentioned on the assembly.
While the town doesn’t count on Bird’s chapter submitting to have rapid results, it might inform program planning.
“We can’t predict what’s going to happen in six months or two years, but I think it’s a good reminder for us to keep our program flexible to respond to those kinds of things,” Ritter mentioned.
In neighboring Arlington County, scooter and e-bike supplier Veo recently declined to renew its permit, citing market circumstances. Superpedestrian can be exiting Arlington because it shutters its U.S. business.
Bird and Bird-owned Spin nonetheless function in Arlington, as does Lime, which introduced close to the tip of 2023 that it had logged 500 million complete rides on its units.
