Scooters arrived this summer in Minneapolis and St. Paul much later than in previous years due to COVID-19, and officials in both cities wondered if there'd be much demand.
Turns out, there's quite a bit. People like Rayn Nachreiner, who took her first scooter ride ever, have been hopping onboard.
"It was a fun experience," said Nachreiner, who recently joined a friend for a 60-minute cruise around Minneapolis on a Bird scooter. "I'm definitely going to use them again in the near future."
Nachreiner said she would like Bird to ship scooters to her hometown of New Ulm in southern Minnesota. That's not in the works, but a Bird spokeswoman said last week that it will be expanding its fleet in Minneapolis and soon bring 500 of its electric vehicles to St. Paul.
Once Bird arrives in St. Paul, the Capital City will have two scooter providers. Lime launched in St. Paul in mid-July with 500 scooters, and demand has been so strong that the company plans to add 200 more. In Lime's first five weeks on the street, St. Paul riders made 61,000 trips, compared with 54,600 trips made between July 15 and Aug. 15 last year, said Lime spokesman Lee Foley.
"We are happy with what we are seeing," said Reuben Collins, a St. Paul transportation engineer. With scooter riders making up to 2,000 trips a day, he said, scooters "serve an important function for the city."
After a slow start in Minneapolis, ridership there is trending upward. Lyft and Bird have about 1,050 scooters on the streets, and as of last week, riders had taken 56,820 trips since the scooter season began about a month ago, said Jacob Brown, who works in the city's Public Works Department and oversees the city's scooter program.
"That's stronger than anticipated," he said. With many people working at home and fewer tourists in town this year, he added, "not knowing what to expect was the scariest thing. It was a nail-biter for a while. We are happy to see people using them."
