Pendleton OKs scooters, already up and running in Hermiston

By Terry Murry on Friday, March 19th, 2021 in Columbia Basin News More Top Stories

PENDLETON – The Pendleton City Council has approved giving a business license to Bird Electric Scooters. A presentation by the company at this week’s council meeting answered a number of questions city officials had.

“We think that this will be a service that there will be a lot of demand for, but we also realize there could be some problems,” Mayor John Turner said.

The council was concerned about having scooters scattered at random locations throughout the city, in addition to questions of vandalism. The scooters can be tracked by the company.

“Bird assures us that they’ve got people going around moving these scooters to locations where people can use them conveniently,” Turner said. “If it becomes a problem, we’ll fix it.”

Currently all types of motorized vehicles are banned in the city’s parks. That includes the Pendleton River Parkway. Turner said that city staff is now working on language that, if approved, would loosen that ban to add certain types of vehicles like electric scooters. If such an ordinance change is suggested, there would have to be a public hearing before the city council.

Photo via the city of Hermiston