CLEVELAND, Ohio – Electric scooters, which first appeared in Cleveland in the summer of 2019, are coming soon to four inner-ring suburbs.
All four brands that operate in Cleveland – Bird, Lime, Spin and LINK - will begin operating in Cleveland Heights, South Euclid, Euclid and East Cleveland on Friday, just ahead of the Labor Day weekend.
Each vendor will place 10 scooters in each city except in East Cleveland, where they will each put four, said Mike Foley, director of sustainability for Cuyahoga County.
East Cleveland is getting fewer scooters because it has only identified two so-called “rebalancing centers,” which is where the scooters will be parked each morning, Foley said.
Foley said the rebalancing centers will primarily be in business districts and along major corridors.
In Cleveland Heights, those locations will be along Lee, Coventry, Cedar, Taylor and Noble roads, said Eric Zamft, director of planning for Cleveland Heights.
“We’re definitely excited,” Zamft said. “We see them around already, sort of informally.”
Zamft said the scooters will be especially useful along Noble Road where transit options are more limited than in other parts of the city.
South Euclid Mayor Georgine Welo also expressed excitement in a prepared statement issued through the county.
“They offer a great alternative mode of transportation for our residents that is environmentally sustainable,” the statement reads. “With easy to reach shopping and dining destinations, such as Cedar Center north, and a large college student population from Notre Dame College and John Carroll University, we feel the scooters are a good fit for our community.”
Foley said that the vendors will only offer scooters to begin with but have the option to add electric bikes if they choose. Only Lime offers electric bikes in Cleveland. Also, the same regulations that govern scooters and electric bikes in the Cleveland, where the speed limit is 15 miles per hour, will apply to the suburbs, according to information provided by Cleveland City Hall.
The cost to ride will depend on the vendor.
For Lime, it will be $1 to unlock the scooter and 15 cents per minute, said Phil Jones, Lime’s senior director of government relations. He said as with the other vendors, there will be discounts offered for those who qualify.
The LINK brand, which is owned by Superpedestrian Inc., will charge $1 to unlock and 35 cents per minute, company spokesman Hasneet Punia said.
Punia said the LINK scooter is the heaviest available “and we believe it provides the most sturdy ride out there.”
Foley said the vendors will provide 15 cents from the proceeds of each ride to the city where the ride originates.
The expansion of the scooters into the suburbs is made possible through a memorandum of understanding between the cites and the county, which licenses the vendors. Other cities are expected to join the share program soon, Foley said. Likely candidates are University Heights, Shaker Heights and Lakewood.
Foley said he believes the scooters have been a success in Cleveland, where they logged 200,000 rides in 2020, despite the pandemic, and without any major incident or safety concern.
“The companies are making money. People like them,” he said.
In the city’s University Circle neighborhood, where 50,000 people work and 10,000 people live, scooters and electric bikes have become important modes of transportation, and in some cases the quickest way to get around, said Chris Ronayne, president of University Circle Inc.
Lime and Spin electric scooters are parked on the East Bank of the Flats. (File photo, 2019)The Plain Dealer
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