Electric scooters have officially arrived in downtown Tampa

In case you missed them outside of Margarita Festival, electric scooters have finally arrived on the streets and sidewalks of downtown Tampa.

On Saturday morning, CL received an email from Bird (one of the companies that won a bid to service the city with its scooters) saying that its electric rides were officially online and available.

Over the weekend we spotted some of those Bird rides, as well some Spin scooters, out and about, but we’ve yet to lay eyes on the Lime and Jump scooters that were also promised to citizens earlier this month.

In total, about 1,800 scooters are part of Tampa’s flirtation with the new mode of transportation, which has seen a mixed bag of reactions in cities like Nashville and Los Angeles were supporters tout the scooters’ usefulness as an alternate mode of getting around while haters point at the the fact that the damn things get in the way and occasionally hit people on sidewalks, too.

The city of Tampa’s Facebook page shared its excitement, but officials at City Hall have also specifically stated that the scooters will not be allowed on the Tampa Riverwalk, the Bayshore Boulevard sidewalk, 7th Avenue or on any private property. Let’s see if these things were worth the wait.

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This article appears in May 23-30, 2019.