Hamilton launches e-scooter pilot program at city hall

There’s another option for getting around in parts of Hamilton.

There are now 150 electric scooters available to rent and ride, in certain areas, as a complement to the existing bike share program.

The plan is to ramp up the e-scooter pilot program, with 350 of the commercial devices to eventually be operational throughout Dundas and wards 1, 2 and 3 in the lower city.

Stewart Lyons, president of Bird Canada, said their scooters are programmed to travel up to 20 km/h and they are generally allowed on streets, bike lanes and multi-use trails, similar to bicycles, but not on sidewalks.

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“It’s a pretty sensitive GPS,” said Lyons. “If it’s a no-ride zone, it will beep twice and gradually come to a stop.”

He added that the technology also protects against theft.

“Try to bring them home as a souvenir, we can see, and typically we’ll show up and ask nicely for the scooter back.”

Based on the company’s app, a scooter ride in Hamilton starts at $1.15 and costs 42 cents per minute, with a minimum spend of $2.50.

“It’s priced, typically, around public transit,” noted Lyons, who said the average trip distance is less than five kilometres.

For ease of use, the scooters offer beginner and standard modes of operation, one based on gentle and the other on normal acceleration.

Bird Canada was selected as the commercial e-scooter operator through a competitive request for proposal (RFP) process.