Local News

Cedar Rapids Bringing Back More Electric Scooters to Rent

Published

5 years ago

February 12, 2020

CEDAR RAPIDS, IOWA — An electric scooter rental program will resume this spring in Cedar Rapids with more scooters to share.

The Gazette reported that the plan is station 80 scooters around the city — up from 30 — and hold steady on bikes at 150. The devices cost $1 to unlock and 15 cents per minute for renting over a smartphone app.

“Our ridership has been pretty successful,” Sylvia Brueckert, a city planner, told the City Council on Tuesday. “We’ve seen the scooters have been incredibly popular. They launched toward the end of August, this summer, and you can see once they were out people really liked using them and they were used a lot.”

Last fall city officials weighed whether to continue with the scooters after hearing reports of improper use and stories from other cities dealing with injuries, litter and other problems.

The scooters drew complaints of people riding on sidewalks, which is illegal, being left in odd places and not being available when people wanted to use them.

Brueckert justified the scooters’ return because of their popularity, new safety controls and a tightly run program.