photo credit: Noah Abrams/KRCB
A Bird e-scooter locked near a West Santa Rosa
bus stop on August 9, 2023.

 

Santa Rosa’s ‘flock of Birds’ have flown off. Well okay, they were quietly whisked off the street a month ago.

"The reason for that was staffing," said Torina Wilson.

Wilson is a transportation planner for the City of Santa Rosa. She said it was Bird themselves who pulled the scooters off the streets.

"They rely on a fleet manager to help maintain the system locally pick up the scooters and charge them and things," Wilson said. "And the one that they were using, they could no longer use. They didn't provide the reason, but they were unable to fill the position."

Santa Rosa’s scooter pilot lasted just over a year. Bird scooters first landed on city streets in July 2022. The company ultimately pulled the plug on September 18 of this year.

And it’s a similar story just north in Windsor too, said Town Manager Jon Davis.

"The bird scooters are no longer gonna be in Windsor," Davis said. "They hope to have the opportunity to return in the future, possibly as the macroeconomic environment recovers."

Davis says its ‘macro-economics’ - a.k.a. the bottom line - that put the pause on the e-scooter shares in our backyard, but in other locales, the scooter retreat has been a conscious choice.

In September, Paris enacted a ban on e-scooter shares after Parisians overwhelmingly voted to remove them from the streets of the French capital in a springtime referendum.

Back in Santa Rosa, the question remains though, was the trial a success? That depends, Wilson said.

“I would assume they would call something successful if they make some sort of revenue or they make enough to cover the cost, and it would be really up to anybody, what exactly success means," Wilson said. "One thing that I can see from the data is that it was really helpful for those shorter trips that are like three miles and below."

And it’s those short ‘first and last mile’ trips which were the point for bringing the scooters to Santa Rosa’s streets to begin with, Wilson said.

"So in my mind, I would think that it would be successful," Wilson said.

Looking back at the stats, the heaviest day of scooter traffic saw 51 rides total - for a combined 82 miles - and an average ride of 1.6 miles.

Asked if we could see a fleet of e-scooters on the street once again:

"It's our hope, definitely that we would have another provider in the future," Wilson said.

Though rentable e-scooters are gone from local streets, Rohnert Park Police this month announced they will follow suit with cities like Los Angeles and enforce traffic code and law for both e-scooters, and increasingly popular e-bikes, following a number of community complaints.