Pentagon Declares War on Scooters

Parked scooters.

Parked scooters. Shutterstock

 

Connecting state and local government leaders

After seven rental scooters were abandoned at the Pentagon following this year’s September 11 remembrances, police say they will begin impounding the unauthorized rides. Bikes, too.

The Pentagon hates your little scooters, too.

In fact, DoD would like you and your ride-sharing company to know that if you leave your rental scooters or shared-bicycles anywhere on Pentagon property, they will be impounded, right quick.

Last week, Pentagon police in one day found seven abandoned, stand-up style motorized scooters around its property. It’s the latest example of the vehicles showing up unwanted all over Washington, from office doorsteps to the Lincoln Memorial.

The perpetrators are not the Vespa-style scooters of "Roman Holiday" — those are welcome, and really, who doesn’t love those? And they’re not the indoor three-wheeled scooters used by Pentagon employees needing mobility assistance around the massive building. Rather, we are talking about the stand-up kind of scooters used mostly by children, like the wooden one stolen by Marty McFly in “Back to the Future” before he turned it into a cool skateboard — except these are built for grown-ups and motorized. Washington citizens nettled by the zippy sidewalk-and-street vehicles have dubbed their riders “scooter bros.”

Rental scooters are part of a new trend of “dockless” transportation, emulating the popular bicycle-sharing programs popping up in cities all over the world. You find a nearby scooter with its smartphone app, pay a fee, and take a ride. When you’re done, someone else can grab the scooter for another ride, or, eventually, the scooter company will pick it up for charging.

Their fans say scooters can go faster than bikes and are more convenient than their docked cousins. One leading scooter-rental company, Lime, told The Verge that it logged 6 million rides in its first year, and is now expanding to 70 cities. In Washington, residents, commuters, and tourists use them all around town. They’re especially popular for uphill trips into northwest residential neighborhoods or around tourist attractions. Riders are encouraged to park their scooters near a bike rack, but often simply abandon them. Anywhere.

“We have noticed abandoned scooters around the Pentagon Reservation during the last several weeks,” said Christopher Layman, a spokesman for the Pentagon Force Protection Agency. The nuisance reached its peak after last week’s September 11 anniversary, when the Pentagon Memorial attracts additional visitors.   

“On the morning of Sept. 12, 2018, seven scooters belonging to the Bird scooter company were found abandoned in various locations around the Pentagon Reservation. The scooters were collected and the company was called to retrieve them. They collected them the same day,” Layman said.

Over the summer, Santa Monica-based Bird placed 50 scooters in Arlington County, Virginia, without prior authorization from the county, according to Washington Business Journal. “Bird scooters have shown up in Pentagon City, Shirlington, Clarendon and Rosslyn,” neighborhoods that surround the Pentagon and Arlington National Cemetery, the paper reported. Bird officials told the Journal that they have since spoken with county officials and filed the appropriate paperwork to start a local business.

The Pentagon sits on a 200-acre federal installation called the Pentagon Reservation, that is overseen by the Defense Department and which includes several supporting buildings and the Pentagon Memorial. It also hosts the largest transit stations in northern Virginia, with a major Metrobus hub above ground and the Blue and Yellow subway lines below.  

“The Pentagon Reservation is not an authorized location for these companies to allow their customers to leave scooters or bicycles unattended. The Pentagon Force Protection Agency informed the Bird scooter company that if more were found in the future, we would impound them,” Layman said, in an email.

What’s unclear is whether Pentagon security officials consider scooters a potential threat, an actual problem, or just a nuisance. The Pentagon enforces strict rules on the 20,000-plus workers who pass its doors on a typical day and the roughly 100,000 annual visitors for building tours. Photography and drones are prohibited and parking is restricted to authorized vehicles. There are bicycle racks for Pentagon employees, but no docking stations for rental bikes or scooters.

A spokesman for Bird told Defense One, in an email, “The area around the Pentagon is a 'no-ride zone' visible in the Bird app. We encourage our riders to avoid it and have taken steps to ensure Birds stay within approved areas. Bird also collects any vehicles left in no-ride zones, or wherever they are parked, as part of our Save Our Sidewalks Pledge. We respect local and federal authorities’ role in enforcing all traffic and parking rules."

Scooter companies like Bird are negotiating with cities and local municipalities across the country over their tactics, existence, and regulation, including in Baltimore, Maryland, where officials complained how the company introduced their scooters first, then sought permission later. Last month, a Baltimore Sun reader wrote in to complain, “I’m disgusted city officials allow Bird Scooter to run a for-profit company in my community without a permit. During the War of 1812, Baltimore held off the British fleet at the Inner Harbor. Today, Baltimore can’t hold off a fleet of electric scooters on Pratt Street. What a disgrace.”

The scooter war drawing most attention this summer was in San Francisco, which three weeks ago awarded one-year permits to two smaller companies, snubbing Lime, Bird, and offerings from Uber and Lyft. The firms Skip and Scoot will be allowed to operate 625 scooters each.

With the rise of stand-up scooter popularity has also come injury. Several media outlets have chronicled a steep rise in scooter-related emergency room visits this summer.

For now, if you want to get to the Pentagon, you’ll have to do it like everyone else. Take a bus, take a train, or try the old-fashioned way: enlist.

X
This website uses cookies to enhance user experience and to analyze performance and traffic on our website. We also share information about your use of our site with our social media, advertising and analytics partners. Learn More / Do Not Sell My Personal Information
Accept Cookies
X
Cookie Preferences Cookie List

Do Not Sell My Personal Information

When you visit our website, we store cookies on your browser to collect information. The information collected might relate to you, your preferences or your device, and is mostly used to make the site work as you expect it to and to provide a more personalized web experience. However, you can choose not to allow certain types of cookies, which may impact your experience of the site and the services we are able to offer. Click on the different category headings to find out more and change our default settings according to your preference. You cannot opt-out of our First Party Strictly Necessary Cookies as they are deployed in order to ensure the proper functioning of our website (such as prompting the cookie banner and remembering your settings, to log into your account, to redirect you when you log out, etc.). For more information about the First and Third Party Cookies used please follow this link.

Allow All Cookies

Manage Consent Preferences

Strictly Necessary Cookies - Always Active

We do not allow you to opt-out of our certain cookies, as they are necessary to ensure the proper functioning of our website (such as prompting our cookie banner and remembering your privacy choices) and/or to monitor site performance. These cookies are not used in a way that constitutes a “sale” of your data under the CCPA. You can set your browser to block or alert you about these cookies, but some parts of the site will not work as intended if you do so. You can usually find these settings in the Options or Preferences menu of your browser. Visit www.allaboutcookies.org to learn more.

Sale of Personal Data, Targeting & Social Media Cookies

Under the California Consumer Privacy Act, you have the right to opt-out of the sale of your personal information to third parties. These cookies collect information for analytics and to personalize your experience with targeted ads. You may exercise your right to opt out of the sale of personal information by using this toggle switch. If you opt out we will not be able to offer you personalised ads and will not hand over your personal information to any third parties. Additionally, you may contact our legal department for further clarification about your rights as a California consumer by using this Exercise My Rights link

If you have enabled privacy controls on your browser (such as a plugin), we have to take that as a valid request to opt-out. Therefore we would not be able to track your activity through the web. This may affect our ability to personalize ads according to your preferences.

Targeting cookies may be set through our site by our advertising partners. They may be used by those companies to build a profile of your interests and show you relevant adverts on other sites. They do not store directly personal information, but are based on uniquely identifying your browser and internet device. If you do not allow these cookies, you will experience less targeted advertising.

Social media cookies are set by a range of social media services that we have added to the site to enable you to share our content with your friends and networks. They are capable of tracking your browser across other sites and building up a profile of your interests. This may impact the content and messages you see on other websites you visit. If you do not allow these cookies you may not be able to use or see these sharing tools.

If you want to opt out of all of our lead reports and lists, please submit a privacy request at our Do Not Sell page.

Save Settings
Cookie Preferences Cookie List

Cookie List

A cookie is a small piece of data (text file) that a website – when visited by a user – asks your browser to store on your device in order to remember information about you, such as your language preference or login information. Those cookies are set by us and called first-party cookies. We also use third-party cookies – which are cookies from a domain different than the domain of the website you are visiting – for our advertising and marketing efforts. More specifically, we use cookies and other tracking technologies for the following purposes:

Strictly Necessary Cookies

We do not allow you to opt-out of our certain cookies, as they are necessary to ensure the proper functioning of our website (such as prompting our cookie banner and remembering your privacy choices) and/or to monitor site performance. These cookies are not used in a way that constitutes a “sale” of your data under the CCPA. You can set your browser to block or alert you about these cookies, but some parts of the site will not work as intended if you do so. You can usually find these settings in the Options or Preferences menu of your browser. Visit www.allaboutcookies.org to learn more.

Functional Cookies

We do not allow you to opt-out of our certain cookies, as they are necessary to ensure the proper functioning of our website (such as prompting our cookie banner and remembering your privacy choices) and/or to monitor site performance. These cookies are not used in a way that constitutes a “sale” of your data under the CCPA. You can set your browser to block or alert you about these cookies, but some parts of the site will not work as intended if you do so. You can usually find these settings in the Options or Preferences menu of your browser. Visit www.allaboutcookies.org to learn more.

Performance Cookies

We do not allow you to opt-out of our certain cookies, as they are necessary to ensure the proper functioning of our website (such as prompting our cookie banner and remembering your privacy choices) and/or to monitor site performance. These cookies are not used in a way that constitutes a “sale” of your data under the CCPA. You can set your browser to block or alert you about these cookies, but some parts of the site will not work as intended if you do so. You can usually find these settings in the Options or Preferences menu of your browser. Visit www.allaboutcookies.org to learn more.

Sale of Personal Data

We also use cookies to personalize your experience on our websites, including by determining the most relevant content and advertisements to show you, and to monitor site traffic and performance, so that we may improve our websites and your experience. You may opt out of our use of such cookies (and the associated “sale” of your Personal Information) by using this toggle switch. You will still see some advertising, regardless of your selection. Because we do not track you across different devices, browsers and GEMG properties, your selection will take effect only on this browser, this device and this website.

Social Media Cookies

We also use cookies to personalize your experience on our websites, including by determining the most relevant content and advertisements to show you, and to monitor site traffic and performance, so that we may improve our websites and your experience. You may opt out of our use of such cookies (and the associated “sale” of your Personal Information) by using this toggle switch. You will still see some advertising, regardless of your selection. Because we do not track you across different devices, browsers and GEMG properties, your selection will take effect only on this browser, this device and this website.

Targeting Cookies

We also use cookies to personalize your experience on our websites, including by determining the most relevant content and advertisements to show you, and to monitor site traffic and performance, so that we may improve our websites and your experience. You may opt out of our use of such cookies (and the associated “sale” of your Personal Information) by using this toggle switch. You will still see some advertising, regardless of your selection. Because we do not track you across different devices, browsers and GEMG properties, your selection will take effect only on this browser, this device and this website.