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Crescent City will join other communities throughout the country in offering electric scooters for folks looking to get from Point A to Point B without exhausting their legs or depleting their gas tank.

Councilors on Monday unanimously approved an agreement with Bird Rides Inc., a Santa Monica-based company that will bring 25 e-scooters to the community starting in May. The agreement allows Bird Rides to grow its Crescent City fleet to 75 scooters, depending on demand and pending approval from City Manager Eric Wier.

Councilors and Del Norte County District 1 Supervisor Darrin Short also urged Bird Inc. senior executive, Garrett Gronowski to make a pitch to the Board of Supervisors.

“I’ve seen these work in other municipalities and I think it’d be a great blend of city and county to be in both places,” Short told Councilors.

Founded in 2017, Bird Inc. scooters can be found nationwide, including Eureka, Gronowski said. To access them, riders download an app, sign a user agreement, which includes a payment method, and are funned into tutorials and route information that can be tailored to the kind of interaction the city wants within its community.

Bird scooters cost $1 to unlock and 30 cents per minute to operate, according to Gronowski. They have a range of 35 miles and a speed of 15 mph. No extra infrastructure is necessary, Gronowski said, “preferred parking zones” can include a bicycle rack, street sign, street lamp, trashcans and benches — anything out of the pedestrian right of way.

“It’s a time-based meter and you take it to your destination,” Gronowski said. “Sixty-five percent of rides have a definite destination and that’s anything from a local business or a local restaurant. Thirty-five percent see it as more of an amenity. It’s a sense of fun, an electric scooter, and on a nice spring, summer or fall day you’ll see residents jumping on these to get outside.”

Bird Inc. will also hire a local employee to manage its local fleet of scooters, Gronowski said. This person would be responsible for charging and repairing the scooters and moving them if they’re in an area that impedes traffic or if they’re in a low-demand area, he said.

Under its agreement with the city, Bird Inc. will be required to remove any scooter that’s impeding pedestrian access, ADA parking zones, bus stops, driveways, loading zones or landscaping within two hours, according City Attorney Martha Rice. Each rider will also sign a liability waiver in favor of the city as part of their user agreement with Bird Inc., she said.

“Bird’s going to share its trip data and injury report with the city and either party may terminate the agreement upon 30 days notice at any time,” Rice said. “As far as number of scooters, the agreement authorizes up to 50 scooters and states that Bird can ask the city manager for authority to deploy additional scooters. We didn’t want to make it too cumbersome that we had to come before the City Council, but given our small size we thought it was appropriate to run it by city staff before adding more than 50 within city limits.”

Bird Inc.’s scooters are regulated by the California Vehicle Code, similar to electronic bikes, which governs where and how fast they can be ridden, according to Rice.

Though they were enthusiastic about the scooters being a “huge upgrade to tourist infrastructure,” Councilors were concerned about how users would negotiate the wonky boundary between the city and the county. They also pointed out that the community’s most scenic areas — Pebble Beach Drive and South Beach — are outside city limits.

“Crescent City proper is 1.6 square miles. You go two blocks from where we’re sitting right now and you’re in the county,” Councilor Blake Inscore said. “It’ll be very easy for a person to be running around here and they’re not in the city anymore. I’m just wondering from a liability standpoint, since this is an agreement with the city, how does that play into that dynamic when you leave city limits?”

According to Gronowski, a map of Crescent City will be built in to the Bird Inc. app. Once the scooters approach a boundary, there will be a beep and it will stop. However, he said he would be happy to negotiate a similar agreement with the county to allow the scooters to be used along Pebble Beach Drive or at South Beach.

Dan Schmidt, who lives in an RV by the S Curves along U.S. 101, pointed out that traffic flows quickly through that area with people heading to Beachfront Park and the Crescent City Harbor.

“I’d be very concerned about the mixture of these scooters with some of this high speed traffic,” he said.

Public Works Director Jon Olson said while he has seen a number of near-misses near the city’s Lighthouse Cove RV Park near the S curves, there is no collision data to support additional traffic signs or signals.

Crescent City resident Linda Perry said she was worried about the lack of infrastructure associated with Bird Inc. scooters.

“My concern is that they’re just going to be dumped on sidewalks and be in the way of pedestrians and individuals who are handicapped,” she said.

Wier said he was also concerned about the lack of infrastructure associated with Bird Inc. scooters — that they can be left anywhere. He said ensuring that the scooters are “left in a nice location” would be part of a good partnership between the city and Bird Inc.

However, nearly all of the City Council felt that the scooters would be a good addition for the city.

“It’s a huge upgrade to tourist infrastructure and can only enrich people’s experiences here,” Mayor Jason Greenough said. “It’s a huge opportunity if we can overcome some of the negatives.”

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