OTTAWA -- More than 160,000 trips were taken on Bird e-scooters in Ottawa this summer and fall.
Bird Canada was one of three operators to provide shared e-scooters for use on the City of Ottawa's multi-use pathways, bike lanes and streets this summer. The e-scooter pilot project wrapped up on Oct. 31.
Bird says there were 40,000 unique users on the scooters in Ottawa over three-and-a-half months, with the average trip length of over three kilometres.
Bird Canada also launched a Safe Streets Team foot patrol to educate riders to ensure they were aware of the local rules and to answer questions.
Council approved a bylaw on June 29 allowing privately owned e-scooters to operate on roads with speed limits under 50 kilometres an hour, bike lanes and City of Ottawa pathways.
This summer, Councillor Carol Anne Meehan called for new regulations for electric scooters, saying they left a mess on streets.
“It’s not hard to find an e-scooter that is in the wrong spot,” Meehan told CTV News Ottawa in August. “When there’s no docking station, the users just discard the vehicle wherever their trip ends. So, it could be on someone’s lawn, or intersections, and that’s exactly what we’re seeing here in Ottawa; and there are complaints, and I think it's unsightly.”
The Ottawa Police Service said in August that some fines had been issued for illegal use of the e-scooters.
On Jan. 1, the Ontario Government started a five-year electric kick scooter pilot project, allowing municipalities to opt-in to permit electric scooters.
