Scooters One Step Closer To Reality In Winchester

WINCHESTER, Ma. - The star of the night stood quietly next to the wall, the focus of the discussion but never a participant. Looking like your kid's old razor scooter on steroids, the orange Spin scooter was an item on the Select Board agenda Monday night.

What began as a discussion between chair Mariano Goluboff and the Lime bikes people, is now just steps from becoming a pilot program between the town and Spin, a San Francisco company founded in 2016 that now has scooters in 47 markets across the country. Spin's Government Partnerships Manager Ashley Brown used a PowerPoint presentation to show the board the benefits of the scooters, as well as the technology each includes. It was impressive.

Each scooter has its own GPS, with a top speed of 15 mph. You must be at least 18-years-old with a valid driver's license to use one. It goes about 15.5 miles on a single charge and has anti-lock brakes and LED headlights. It's made for use in bike lanes, not sidewalks, and users are encouraged to wear helmets. You pay $1 to unlock the scooter, then pay based on the amount of time you have the bike. It's environmentally friendly, in theory takes cars off the road, and ya, it's cool looking.

It's hard not to support the idea of a pilot program for Winchester unless you share the concerns of Traffic and Transportation Advisory Committee chair Jim Whitehead.

"Maybe we're jumping into the pool a little too soon," said Whitehead. "Our recommendation would be to move a little slower on this."

Whitehead and his fellow committee members pointed out that the greatest number of car and bike accidents in Winchester were in the town center. "We're talking about adding another element to this," said Whitehead. Committee members felt pedestrian and bike safety was already a challenge in the town center and the addition of scooters could make it worse.

Winchester isn't the first to consider scooters to help improve transportation issues and the town can look to Brookline to see how their pilot program is going, one that includes Spin along with Lime and Bird. Spin is also in Salem, Ma.

Even with concerns about the scooters, none were big enough for the Select Board to stop the process. Instead they encouraged Town Manager Lisa Wong to continue negotiating an agreement with Spin and bring it back to the board in August.

Earlier in the meeting, the board approved plans to add a sidewalk to the north side of Bates Road, making the walk to Muraco safer for students. The issue was turned over to Wong and the town's DPW ... the board voted to reappoint Deborah Melkonian to the Board of Registers, Ashley Stevens to the Cable Advisory Committee, Michael Beauvais to Field Management, and Lauren Costello to Wildwood Cemetery Advisory. The board also approved recent appointments by Wong, including Joseph Newton as a civilian dispatcher in the police department, a result of the town's support of the override in March.