NORFOLK, Va. — It's been over a year since Lime scooters arrived in Norfolk, and now new data is out in reference to how many miles Norfolk riders have racked up.
During the first year of Lime e-scooter operations, participants took them for nearly 600,000 miles. That's a lot of scooting.
Norfolk welcomed the scooters back in June of 2019 and since then, the city has accumulated over a thousand of the motorized vehicles.
The company's Director of Transit, Amy Inman, said they had to request the increase after seeing how widely they were being used.
"Lime originally started off with 500 and we have performance metrics built in so if people reach so many rides per scooter, per day, Lime can request to increase their fleet. I think they originally requested up to 700, and then 900 and now we have 1,100 scooters - so that seems to be a good number for Norfolk," she said.
Robert Gardner, the company's director of government relations, said sanitation measures have increased significantly because of the pandemic.
"Every single night when a scooter gets down to a certain amount of battery, it's brought into our warehouse," he said. "They are brought in by our warehouse staff or by our contract staff. Those vehicles are then cleaned and a full inspection is done."
Lime disinfects all the surfaces and allows for the scooters to be visibly wet for 5 minutes, while letting them air dry. The main focus areas are, of course, the frequently-touched parts, like handle bars, breaks and throttles.
For now, the best place to park your scooter is on the side of the sidewalk, leaving at least three feet of clearance for people to walk by.
Inman says the city plans on installing designated areas to make it easier for people to drop off and access the scooters soon.
"We are in the process of developing a scooter parking program for the downtown area where we will have parking for the scooters, so we can start to get them out of the sidewalks," Inman said.