93.9 The Eagle – The News and Talk of Columbia, MO
You’re not seeing many of those electric scooters buzzing around Mizzou’s campus this year.
The Columbia City Council this week voted to table the return of Bird scooters to Columbia for six months.
Councilwoman Pat Fowler pulled the issue off the consent agenda Monday night, and led the 4-3 vote to table the deal. She said small downtown businesses are using more sidewalk and parking spaces during the pandemic.
“I don’t want to yield the space to a business that’s not here when we could allow our downtown businesses the time to get their feet underneath them for how they want to continue to operate given our other restrictions under Covid.”
The council decided last year to make companies bid on whether they can operate electric scooters in town. Bird and the city appeared to have a one-year deal to operate 500 scooters, but that is on hold now.
