Bob Collins
A lot of cities are upset that the Bird company has dropped rentable scooters on their streets — looking at you, St. Paul — but few have been as brazen as Milwaukee at trying to keep people from using them.
If people want something, who the heck are bureaucrats to tell people they can’t have it?
The city attorney in Milwaukee has declared the scooters illegal and has sued the company. But he also wants $100 fines against anyone who uses them.
The people of Milwaukee are unimpressed, the Journal Sentinel says. They’re renting them and daring the cops to fine them. The cops? They’re not interested in scooters.
“I know it’s illegal but I’m not worried about getting a ticket. I’ve gone past a few cops already, and I have a lot of friends riding them,” scooter renter Aric Agabekov. “Plus it saves money, it’s fast, and it’s more fun than biking.”
Transportation as fun? God forbid.
Bird has dumped even more scooters on Milwaukee streets.
This is how a transportation revolution begins and perhaps it’s time for the cities’ bureaucrats to step back and consider that perhaps they don’t know everything there is to know about how people should get from Point A to Point B.
“The people of Milwaukee have enthusiastically adopted this new mode of transportation, and there is a strong demand for Bird throughout the city,” a Bird spokesperson tells the newspaper. “We look forward to working with the city to create and enforce common sense rules encouraging the safe use of our sustainable transportation option.”
Or everyone can just get out of the way and let people do what they want.
