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Tulsa drops proposal to regulate electric scooter users’ age

BY KEVIN CANFIELD
Tulsa World
TULSA (AP) – Tulsa was all abuzz a year
ago when word got out that Lime would
be bringing its electric scooters to town,
and the buzz hasn’t subsided since.
Lime came to town in late October
2018, followed soon after by Bird, and
the city landscape was changed forever.
The numbers tell the story: a combined
139,990 unique users and 606,768 trips.
“I think the use and the continued
sustained use of them is pretty remark-
able,” Nick Doctor, the city’s chief of
community development and policy, told
the Tulsa World. “They were such a new
technology and cities across the country
had such different models and templates
for dealing with that. Translating that
to Tulsa was challenging when we first
launched them.
“But what those numbers have shown,
at least as we have reviewed them, is a
broad popularity that is pretty widely
geographically spread across the city.
And that popularity wasn’t just a surge at
the initial point when they were new and
popular – it’s really continued to sustain
itself throughout the last year.”
The city isn’t done figuring out what
rules and regulations should apply to the
new technology.
Doctor recently told city councilors
that the Mayor’s Office was dropping
its proposal to place a minimum age
requirement on users of rented bicycles
and electric scooters. The age limit was
first proposed in May as part of a series of
updates to the city’s electric scooter and
bicycle ordinances.
The Mayor’s Office proposed setting
the minimum age limit at 16 – the same
Two pedestrians ride electric scooters on Main Street at Fourth Street in downtown Tulsa.
Tulsa officials recently dropped a proposal to place age limits on electric scooter riders.
MIKE SIMONS/TULSA WORLD VIA AP
age a resident of Oklahoma is eligible to
drive a car – because it believed it was
reasonable to assume that a person that
age would be familiar with the traffic
laws.
But Doctor explained that after doing
more research, city legal determined the
minimum age requirement could not
be applied only to customers who rent
bicycles or scooters but would have to
apply to anyone who operates a bicycle
or scooter.
“The last thing we wanted to do was to
prohibit individuals generally from rid-
ing their personal bicycles, to make Tulsa
the first city in the U.S. to prohibit chil-
dren from learning how to ride bikes,”
Doctor said.
Lime, Bird and This Machine (the
local bike-sharing program) all require
users to be 18 years old, but the city has
no authority to enforce it.
Doctor noted that people who rent
bicycles and electric scooters must still
comply with the city’s traffic regulations.
That would include proposed city ordi-
nance changes clarifying where scooters
and bicycles can be driven and the num-
ber of persons allowed on a vehicle.
The City Council is expected to vote
soon on ordinance changes that would
limit the number of riders on an electric
scooter to one and clearly identifying
where electric scooters cannot be driven
on sidewalks.
The existing electric scooter ordi-
nance prohibits their use on sidewalks
in “business districts” but provides no
specific definitions of those areas. The
proposed ordinance change would re-
move the “business district” designation
and provide specific boundaries.
They include the Inner Dispersal
Loop, which is defined as the area of
downtown bounded on the east by U.S.
75, on the west and north by Interstate
244, and on the south by Oklahoma 51.
Along south Peoria Avenue in
Brookside, people would be prohibited
from driving electric scooters on side-
walks from E. 33rd Street to E. 36th
Street; and along Cherry Street, the pro-
hibition would apply to E. 15th Street,
from south Peoria Avenue to south Utica
Avenue.
Doctor said that Tulsa has had to deal
with the same challenges other cities
have faced when scooters arrived, in-
cluding abandoned scooters and a lack of
understanding of the rules.
That is one reason why the city plans
to use part of the revenue it raises from
licensing scooter companies to further
educate the public on scooter and bicycle
regulations.
“Generally, I think Tulsa’s response
has been pretty positive,” Doctor said.

Duncan group raising money for new train at Kiddieland Park

BY LINDA PROVOST
The Duncan Banner
DUNCAN (AP) – The Duncan Chisholm
Trail Kiwanis club is doing something
that hasn’t happened for 50 years, bring-
ing a new ride into Kiddieland. The club
has already put the order in with a Texas
manufacturer, according to Chris Genn,
past president of the club.
“Basically, we’ve got a new train on
order coming out of Texas, American-
made, brand-new train,” he told The
Duncan Banner. “What we are trying
to do is raise some funds to be able to
pay for that train. We’re looking to raise
$80,000 for the train. We haven’t had a
new ride in the park in over 51 years –
the last ride that came to the park was the
train in 1968 and so we just felt like this
is the right time.”
To help raise the necessary funds to
get the train on track, the Kiwanians are
opening its doors.
“We’ve opened the park for additional
time throughout October on Friday and
Saturday nights from 6 to 9 p.m. and all
the funds we raise on those days will go
towards the train,” Genn said. “We are
also doing a ‘Golden Ticket’ sale – we
bought 400 golden tickets and you can
purchase a golden ticket for $20, and that
money is going towards the train. What
that Golden ticket does ... I believe it’s the
end of April, before the beginning of the
season, we are going to open it for three
nights and those with the golden tickets
will be able to come enjoy the park and
be the first to ride the new train.”
Genn said people can also sign up to
be a “Friend of Kiddieland.”
The program is a way for commu-
nity members not part of the Kiwanis to
learn how to run the rides and volunteer
at Kiddieland so everyone could enjoy
the park.
“In the two years I’ve been president
we have never closed Kiddieland be-
cause we didn’t have enough people,” he
said.
However, Genn hopes that having
more volunteers would mean people
who have been faithfully volunteering
could get a break and maybe even learn
more about the civic club.
Genn said those who do volunteer, for
every night they work they will get a free
pass for one family night at Kiddieland.
To become a “Friend of Kiddieland,”
contact the club through its Facebook
page to set a time to come down to
Kiddieland and fill out background-
check paperwork and learn some of the The Duncan Chisholm Trail Kiwanis club is fundraising for its new train coming from Texas.
positions. THE BANNER VIA AP, FILE