Lime Scooters Return to Milwaukee

They’re here.

The first rentable, dockless scooters have returned to Milwaukee’s streets. Scooters from private operator Lime were deployed around the city Thursday, just a few days after parking corrals were painted on some city automobile parking spaces. The electric scooters, with a top speed of 15 miles per hour, can be rented with a smartphone application.

The city approved the electric scooters’ return in late June with a Department of Public Works (DPW) official telling the Common Council that private companies could deploy scooters as soon as early August.

But that date came and went, with a DPW spokesperson telling Urban Milwaukee that scooters would return in “late August or early September.” The city in the past has approved Lime, Bird and Spin to deploy their scooters on the city streets. A fourth company, based in Milwaukee, has now emerged: Blue Duck. DPW has only selected three companies for operation, according to a media advisory.

Lime is the first company to deploy its scooters. A DPW spokesperson told Urban Milwaukee it was a “limited number” of scooters. The Lime app shows several dozen scooters available in the greater downtown area. Pricing, based on the app, starts at $1 per ride plus $0.34 per minute. An all-you-can-ride pass is $11.99 for one hour or $19.99 for 24 hours.

A formal launch for all of the operators is scheduled for Friday.

Unlike prior scooter approvals, the 2022 approval lasts through the end of 2023. At that point the city could legalize the scooters on a permanent basis, or conduct a fourth “pilot study.”

Unlike the 2021 study, the 2022-2023 study does not include an automatic trigger to ban greater downtown area usage if a consultant determines more than 10% of riders are improperly using the sidewalk to ride. But a specific operator could be terminated for failing to comply with the program regulations. Lime’s scooters Thursday were available in the heart of Downtown.

Sidewalk riding is prohibited, with each operator using a slightly different technological approach to detect if riders are using the sidewalk. The scooters are able to be parked on sidewalks, but are required not to block the sidewalk. The effectiveness of the technology remains to be seen. A third-party consultant found that, in 2021, 25.5% of all riders observed over three visual monitoring periods were riding entirely on the sidewalk.

The 2022-2023 program imposes a $0.25-per-trip fee, $25-per-incident relocation fee and a $50-per-scooter fee. The fees are to be used to monitor and administer the pilot program.

In 2021, DPW reports that people took 481,706 riders on the electric scooters, an average of 2,452 rides per day over the five-and-a-half month pilot study. That’s up from 350,130 rides in 2019.

The average ride time was 10 minutes, with an average distance of 0.9 miles. Each individual scooter, rentable with a smartphone application, was used an average of 2.6 times per day. The companies were each allowed to deploy up to 1,000 scooters in the city. Under the new pilot, they will be allowed 600 scooters each.

There were 15 scooter crashes reported to the Milwaukee Police Department, the majority of which occurred in an area bounded by W. Locust St. and W. Lisbon Ave., between I-43 and N. Sherman Blvd. None were reported Downtown or on the Lower East Side. In one of the crashes, one rider ran into another head on. At least two crashes occurred because riders were improperly using the sidewalk and then re-entering the street. Many crashes, based on one-sentence descriptions, were the fault of motorists.