Scooter Company Making Upgrades To Wenatchee Ops
The company that brought electric scooter service to the Wenatchee Valley is in the process of making numerous upgrades to its operations in the area.
Bird scooters is taking the actions after the Wenatchee City Council expressed concerns over several issues with the company's service at its July 13 meeting, including diminished vehicle quality, stray and uncharged vehicles, and the allowance of underage ridership.
Anthony Williams, who assumed the role Bird's new local fleet manager shortly after that council meeting, says they are working to implement several new upgrades to address the problems.
"One of the biggest things that we're excited about is the process for rentals and reservations that we're going to institute. We feel it will allow us a lot more control over the vetting process of the people that are actually renting them, as well as control over actually getting them back into a safe spot."
Williams says there are also other implementations being made that will reduce or eliminate the number of scooters that are not properly returned.
"We're starting up a hotline service so if anyone in the city sees a scooter where it shouldn't be they can just give us a call and we'll come and get it right away with about a twenty-four hour or less response time. Because we want to maintain our streets the way they should be and we don't want anything blocking anybody's driveways or parking lots."
Bird is also working to repair or replace many of the scooters in its Wenatchee fleet.
There were only two dozen scooters in service in the Valley to start the month but the company says they plan to at least double that number by the end of July, and could increase the fleet to as many as 100 vehicles by the end of August.
Bird launched its service in the Wenatchee area last year, and the city renewed its contract with the company in March.
Either party can pull out of the deal without cause using 30 days written notice.
The Wenatchee City Council is expecting an update on Bird's progress with the scheduled changes at its meeting on August 10.
