San Antonio – Despite once having been a hot-button issue, scooter use has become a rarer sight in San Antonio.
With at least seven scooter companies having come through the city at one point or another since June 2018, scooters used to fill San Antonio streets, providing 300,101 rides in December 2018 alone. Now, just two companies - Bird and Razor - hold exclusive contracts to operate up to 1,000 scooters each within the city, providing many fewer rides than before.
August was the busiest month for the two companies since they began their contracts in mid-January, providing 73,871 rides. While usage took a steep dive during the roughest parts of the pandemic - with just 2,839 rides in April - ridership numbers had been declining for months already.
A spokesman for Razor acknowledged a “temporary decrease" in rides during the pandemic, but said the company saw greater ridership in San Antonio in August and September over the previous year. With a greater share of the market now, though, as just one of two exclusive operators, that’s not surprising.
A spokeswoman for Bird said the company initially pulled back its fleet when the pandemic hit in order to put new practices in place.
While some riders told KSAT they were worried about the spread of germs on the scooters during the pandemic, there is also the evergreen issue of price.
When scooters arrived in the city, they were cheap, typically costing about $1 to unlock the scooter and then just 15 cents for each minute of the ride. However, prices have grown, and taxes and fees have been added, as well.
An eight-minute ride on a Bird scooter cost $2.20 in October 2018, $4.45 in December 2019, and $4.70 this week.
The scooters do not appear ready to disappear just yet, though, and they can still be easily found in the downtown area.
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