One Owensboro resident and entrepreneur presented a notion to City Commissioners on Tuesday to bring 100 electric scooters to the downtown area for use by the public. Nicholas Tharp the scooters wouldn’t cost the City anything and he believed they’d provide entertainment and cost-effective means of transportation in Owensboro.
Tharp said he’d already been in talks with Bird — a company that’s provided electric scooters to a number of cities already — as well as Commissioner Jeff Sanford, City Manager Nate Pagan and Assistant City Manager Lelan Hancock about the idea, earning positive feedback from most everyone.
According to Tharp, Bird estimated Owensboro could use up to 300 electric scooters based on its size, but Tharp talked the company down to providing 100 in the beginning. Tharp said he wanted to run the idea by City Commissioners rather than surprising them with an announcement that 100 scooters would be brought to Owensboro.
The electric scooters have become popular in cities such as Louisville, Nashville and St. Louis, Tharp said.
Tharp said he’s purchasing the scooters, so the City of Owensboro wouldn’t have to pay anything to have them here. He added that he would take care of charging and maintenance for all of the scooters.
Smart phones would be used to turn the scooters on and off through the Bird app. Users could also pay to use the scooters through their phones, Tharp said. The scooters would not necessarily have designated parking spots, and instead could be parked or picked up from anywhere in the City.
“In St. Louis, you ride where you want to hop off, then someone else hops on,” he said. “If you want to designate preferred parking spots, you can do that too.”
The rules for scooters use are largely customizable, Tharp added. They would not be permitted for use on City sidewalks and must be driven on the streets, but certain areas such as parks and the Greenbelt could be designated as “no-ride zones,” he said. If a person were to cross into one of the no-ride zones, the scooter would automatically shut off.
“We can set up some geofences where they can’t be ridden in parks,” Hancock said.
The idea to bring electric scooters to Owensboro came to Tharp after he rode one in a different city and enjoyed the experience. As a lifelong Owensboro resident and an entrepreneur, Tharp said he and his wife were always looking for ways to help the community and get fun things out there for people to do.
“Downtown is our main focus. All that money was just spent out there and got it looking good. There’s tons of people down there every day,” he said. “These scooters could connect people to other small businesses downtown.”
Additionally, Tharp said college students could use the scooters to get to class and that they could be used to connect people to the transit systems.
“For a couple of bucks they can hop on one of these and it gets them to where they need to go,” he said.
While helmets are encouraged by Bird, they are not enforced. Owensboro Police Department officials said they wouldn’t be able to enforce helmet-wearing on them because electric scooters didn’t qualify as motor vehicles. Still, according to OPD, there would likely be an issue in policing the 18-year-old age limit of those allowed to use Bird scooters.
“Our primary concern is being 18 to operate them,” said Field Services Commander Major J.D. Winkler. “This could potentially be a problem. It would be a low-level offense we’d have to engage with the community about.”
Winkler also confirmed that those driving Bird scooters while under the influence could be served with a DUI of a non-motor vehicle.
