Andrew Theen/Staff

I have seen your electric scooter future, Portland.

It’s fun. It’s dorky. It’s wobbly, at least initially. It’s going to be weird. At equal points, I imagine you’ll be enamored with the convenience of a new form of transportation, or enraged at the sight of a scooter illegally blasting down a sidewalk.

LimeBike, one of five companies potentially in line to participate in a four-month pilot project this summer, let The Oregonian/OregonLive to take one of the scooters for a ride in downtown Portland.

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Andrew Theen/Staff

I lived to tell the tale, and I didn’t leave the scooter errantly on the sidewalk afterward.

By now you’ve likely heard tales of other city’s experiences with dockless scooters, the latest transportation craze whereby users can rent the two-wheeled devices on a smart phone and leave them anyplace they’d please when they get to their destination.

Portland, still feeling the burn from its early rocky relationship with Uber, another Silicon Valley-startup that sought to turn transportation on its head, is eyeing the industry warily. It is only guaranteeing a trial period for scooters, and it has concerns about pedestrian safety and how to ensure users won’t discard scooters willy-nilly. As of Friday, no starting date has been announced.

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Andrew Theen/Staff

Meanwhile, electric bikes and dockless bike companies are likely next in line.

Here are some thoughts on my scooter experience:

- It’s fun: I had never tried an electric scooter before, and as a giant person, I’d never gravitated toward razor scooters or other non-electric scooting cousins as a youth. One of my first instincts once I started to ride was to crack a big smile like the big doofus I am.

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Julie Evensen/Staff

- Signals: I am not one of those bicyclists you see nonchalantly riding sans hands, sitting back in smug satisfaction while essentially screaming with all their might, silently, to those around them, “Look at how cool I am.” No, I had difficulty taking my hand off of the handlebars to signal a left or right turn on the scooter. My balance wasn’t great initially either, and it wasn’t comfortable for me to signal when turning. I’m a decent athlete, and I have big feet, but it took me a few minutes to figure out the most comfortable place to put them initially. I could see people not using signals because they don’t feel comfortable going one-handed. It doesn’t take a very stable genius to imagine what riding one of these scooters might feel like while tipsy. Keep an eye out for that behavior.

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Andrew Theen/Staff

- Helmets: Did you know it’s illegal to operate an e-scooter in Oregon, no matter how old you are, without a helmet? No? Sorry to burst your bubble. If you think few people wear helmets on the Biketown rides, imagine what it will be like on the scooters.

- Bike lanes: I chose to take the e-scooter on a spin through Tom McCall Waterfront Park and up and down Better Naito. It felt comfortable in that setting but felt a little less safe on the other side of Naito Parkway, when I rode in the bike lane. The suspension on the scooter I rode was not exactly top-of-the-line. You feel the imperfections, let’s say, in our street infrastructure. Depending on where you are in the city, this could be an extremely bumpy ride and a deal breaker, forcing people onto ….

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- Sidewalks: I am definitely not looking forward to the scooter revolution hitting Portland’s sidewalks. I’m pretty confident biking while in the legal right of way, either on a bike lane or the traffic lane. But given some of the concerns I mentioned earlier, I could see users ditching the street for the smoother sidewalk areas. The scooters aren’t silent, but they aren’t exactly loud either. The bell on my demo model didn’t work well, but I would hope scooterites use their bell to alert pedestrians if they are indeed riding illegally on the sidewalk. Because you’re unlikely to be passing many bicyclists on a scooter.

- Practical uses: It’s not difficult to imagine the everyday benefits a scooter provides. If you’re trying to make it to a meeting from one part of downtown to the other, a scooter is a good bet. I see people using them as a last-mile option to avoid walking or waiting for a bus or train. I would be hesitant to ride on my own commute, which would put me on North Interstate Avenue or North Greeley Street. Even Vancouver seems a bit of a dicey proposition. Going downhill is a bit hair-raising. While it tops out at around 15 miles per hour, it feels a lot faster when on a scooter.

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- No sweat: Unlike hoofing it from my office in downtown to the Pearl District on a Biketown, I can’t imagine sweating much while riding an e-scooter. This makes it an ideal way to get around if you’re wearing business attire or otherwise don’t want to get your sweat on.

- Hills: I would tend to avoid going up or down hills when renting a scooter. Even heading up the moderate incline near the bowl at Waterfront Park felt like I was straining the scooter’s powers. It sounded like a children’s electric Jeep that hadn’t been charged in weeks.

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- East Portland: I am most curious about whether the e-scooters are indeed dispersed widely in parts of town such as east Portland, where there’s a lack of frequent transit service. But there are huge alarm bells about that scenario, too. Some of the most dangerous intersections and high crash corridors are those areas east of 122nd Avenue, and sidewalks and bike lanes are often patchy or haphazard at best. Scooters could be useful additions to the transit system, but they could also put people at risk in parts of town already prone to traffic fatalities.

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-- Andrew Theen

atheen@oregonian.com

503-294-4026

@andrewtheen

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