West Hollywood approves plan to allow only "Lime" scooters to operate in the city
West Hollywood leaders approved a plan allowing one company, Lime, to operate its scooters in the city after the once-popular e-scooter company Bird filed for bankruptcy.
"We can't let one bad company take away from the extremely popular demand of people wanting different transit options that don't include cars," Mayor John Erickson said.
Erickson added that Bird's bankruptcy won't change the city's commitment to allow scooters.
"I think the original contract with Bird and Lime was upwards of 300 scooters," he said. "Now, we're going to have 200 with just Lime. I think we're trying to balance everything here together to ensure that everyone can have this option."
When E-scooters were rolled out across Southern California about seven years ago there was plenty of controversy and frustration. City leaders and residents across the area believed that there were too few regulations that contributed to the gruesome injuries and complaints. There were also concerns about how many scooters were in operation and where they could be parked.
Many of the issues were ironed out and the scooters remained popular, but the pandemic and other economic forces have apparently made staying in business a challenge for some of the E-scooter companies.
"I personally don't like the green ones, the Lime ones," said resident Jasmine Hernandez. "You can definitely feel the bumps more."
West Hollywood's leadership said they will now have to remove the Bird scooters if the company doesn't do it themselves. There are still a number of them on the streets.
The contract with Bird expires at the end of this month.
