PHOTO COURTESY OKLAHOMA CITY SPOKIES
The State
T R A N S P O R TAT I O N
Traveling Green Scooters and bicycles for hire have popped up in Tulsa, Oklahoma City, Norman and Stillwater.
PHOTO BY JOSH NEW
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OKLAHOMA MAGAZINE | DECEMBER 2018
ublic-private partnerships, as well as private vendors, continue to offer green options for getting around Oklahoma in the form of bicycles and scooters. Two scooter rental companies, Bird and Lime, recently appeared in Tulsa, and the city also launched its This Machine bicycle rental program July 27. Bird and Lime also dropped their products off not long ago in Oklahoma City, where the Spokies bike share was launched in 2012, and in Stillwater and in Norman, where scooters are quickly embraced on streets near college campuses. The rental companies, in some cases, put out their scooters unexpectedly, say city leaders, who scrambled to issue permits and draft ordinances. But most agree scooters fit well with plans to make it easier for people to get around dense areas, see the sights and depend less on automobiles. Nick Doctor, chief of community development in the Tulsa mayor’s office, says a new ordinance covers docked and dockless humanpowered and electric bicycles and scooters. Docked bikes and scooters must be parked in designated areas that usually have racks. Dockless means bikes and scooters can be left pretty much anywhere within a large area; users find them via tracking software. Private vendors are charged an annual repair
