Windsor city council votes to keep Bird e-scooters operating for another three years

The City of Windsor is moving forward with plans to expand e-scooter and e-bike rental services across the city.

Council voted at its last meeting to accept Bird Canada’s proposal to continue operating in the city for three years, after a recent two-year pilot project downtown wrapped up.

“Certainly was a really interesting a couple years with Bird,” said Ward 8 Coun. Gary Kaschak. “I think the experiment has gone well so far, and I look forward to it moving forward.”

Bird Canada first arrived in Windsor in May 2021 and was the only company to submit a proposal to provide an expanded e-scooter and e-bike service within the city limits.

“Surprisingly, we only got one company to bid but we're happy with Bird,” Kaschak exclaimed. “And I think that that'd be a good partner moving forward.”

Kaschak believes e-bikes and e-scooters play a big role in the big picture across the city, helping connect people with businesses and places outside of the city core.

“When you get people on bicycles and scooters, sometimes stores will get an uptick instead of them just driving by it you know, 60 kilometers in a car,” Kaschak explained.

“If we can get those out towards the east end, the Pillette Road, Lauzon Road area within my boundary area, I think that'd be fantastic.”

Kaschak noted previous concerns over storage and safety were limited and addressed in the proposal.

“Safety is still the utmost in riding these,” Kaschak said. “Don't think you're invincible and still follow the rules of the road. I think there's an uptick in usage in that area that’ll come on board if we can expand the area and they’re GPS’d nicely so if they get out of get out range or they're not going to work they're going to get picked up fairly quick. So I'm happy with that.”

City administration tells CTV News the contract hasn’t been signed yet and is still being finalized, but staff remains hopeful details will be arranged soon.

“We do want to try and get everything set up so that there's no gap in service that we can get things going right away in the spring of this year,” said City of Windsor executive director of operations, Shawna Boakes.

“The intent of the RFP was to allow for an expansion. Our original program was just a pilot program. So it was kept in a limited area. So now that we're actually moving forward with a little bit larger of a program and a more stable program we do want to move that program out and incorporate more of the city.”

Boakes noted officials are awaiting results from a recent Ministry of Transportation survey on e-scooters and e-bikes to compare to the city’s own survey.

Officials said the company will provide 375 e-scooters and 75 e-bikes this year but that could be expanded to 600 devices altogether.

According to the Bird Canada website, Windsor is a green city that fits perfectly with Bird Canada's mission, with over 215 parks covering 2,800 acres of green space.

Bird Canada officials declined to comment for the time being while the proposed contract is still being finalized.