Casper Council Works on Possible Scooter Ordinance

At the Casper city council work session on Tuesday, the city attorney, John Henly, talked about the proposed changes to municipal codes that may be needed if electric scooters are coming into the city.

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While many of the changes involved adding limitations for scooters in places where bikes already were, one notable sticking point was an exclusion zone downtown, from Casper rail trail up to east A street, between north Beech street and south David street.

Henly said the area was created for where scooters are not allowed in order to ensure safety, however many council members expressed concern that it would discourage people from using scooters at all.

Council member Bruce Knell said it seemed unnecessary to have the boundary, as he had ridden around on electric scooters in Austin and didn't have an issue with cars driving around at 40 miles per hour, compared to 20 in downtown Casper.

Council member Kyle Gamroth said the Bird scooters, which the city has been discussing bringing on for their scooters, has geofencing that could be put up in that area, but which other scooter companies, that might want to take part, might have difficulty acquiring.

There was also an issue with the contract that was proposed between Bird and Casper, which included a flat fee of $3,000 and $25 per electric scooter.

Several council members, like Knell, Steve Cathey, and Amber Pollock, said they felt imposing a flat fee would discourage smaller scooter businesses from entering into Casper, including one that currently operates in the city.

Council ended up deciding on removing the scooter exclusion area and looking into changing how the city might charge scooter companies wanting to operate in the city.

There will be three readings total for the changes, with public comment being available at future readings.