Lime Scooter Development Director Roasts Regressive Raleigh City Council
“Thanks to visionary leadership and forward-thinking individuals, global firms have repeatedly chosen to invest in Raleigh and across the region. Those same leaders would be baffled by the Raleigh City Council’s approach to innovative new transportation options. Companies like Lime offer ubiquitous, carbon-neutral transportation at affordable prices. But instead of embracing this subsidy-free solution, the City Council seems bent on suffocating it.
First, a majority of council members classified our stand-up scooters in the same way as mopeds, obligating us to seek titling and registration at the DMV. Our stand-up electric scooters are slower and take up less space. The GA surely never had our scooters in mind when they crafted regulations for traditional mopeds.
The council instituted one of the highest permit fees in the nation — a cost that we cannot help but pass on to our riders. Councilman Dickie Thompson almost single-handedly tripled the fees that our riders will pay. The hundreds of thousands of members of the Raleigh community who have depended on scooters to plug the gaps in public transportation or get to work at a low cost are not a “problem” at all.
Finally, council has compelled us to purchase a level of insurance that far exceeds any comparable city, a cost burden that ultimately our riders will bear. ...
The City Council can correct this mistake by amending the terms of its agreement to embrace affordable, ubiquitous transportation options for all members of the Raleigh community. We urge them to do so at their first meeting of the year.”
— Todd O'Boyle - Director of Lime Strategic Development
