Seattle’s scooter and bike share program is navigating a bit of a bumpy road as one company with devices on city streets has filed for bankruptcy and another is reportedly shutting down operations.
Bird filed for bankruptcy on Wednesday, saying in a news release that the “financial restructuring process” is aimed at “strengthening its balance sheet and better positioning the company for long-term, sustainable growth.”
Bird first received a permit to operate electric scooters in the city in 2022. This summer the company added bikes to the mix, and as of this month had a fleet of more than 1,800 units in the city, according to data from the Seattle Department of Transportation.
Miami-based Bird said it will operate as usual during the bankruptcy process, “maintaining the same service for its riders and upholding its commitments to partner cities, fleet managers, and employees.”
A Bird spokesperson confirmed in an email to GeekWire that that commitment applies to Seattle, where the company plans to continue a “strong relationship with the City administration to ensure the correct number of scooters are deployed.” Bird said it expects to continue to operate with its same local team of employees.
Meanwhile, Superpedestrian, makers of LINK e-scooters, is reportedly shutting down U.S. operations at the end of December, according to a TechCrunch story last week and posts by employees on LinkedIn. The Cambridge, Mass.,-based company raised $125 million last year, but TechCrunch reported that the reason for the shutdown was financial.
Superpedestrian received Seattle permit approval at the same time as Bird in 2022, and the company deployed more than 2,100 scooters during peak riding season this summer.
A media representative with SDOT said Wednesday that the company “will collect as many lost/missing scooters as possible” in Seattle by the end of December.
GeekWire reached out to Superpedestrian for comment and will update this story when we hear back.
Seattle was the first city in the nation to pilot free-floating, rentable bicycles in 2017. By the end of that year, there were 10,000 such bikes scattered across the city as bike sharing took off. Neon green, yellow and orange bikes also became a fixture of the landscape in not-so-great ways, too.
Dockless e-scooters first arrived in Seattle as part of pilot program launched by the city in 2019. By that time, scooters for rent had cropped up in more than 100 U.S. cities, reshaping the urban transportation infrastructure in the blink of an eye.
Companies such as Wheels and Spin operated scooters during the pilot, but did not make the cut for new permits in 2022, leaving Bird, LINK and Lime, which also operates e-bikes. Another company, Veo, now operates its Cosmo e-bikes in the city, with just over 1,000 deployed this month.
Lime is currently operating at its cap of 2,000 bikes and 2,000 scooters. It reached a peak of 5,000 total deployed devices this summer, with City approval to serve the high season. Lime also saw its highest ridership ever in Seattle, with 3.2 million rides in 2023.
“Lime will continue to serve the City of Seattle today and into the future,” a Lime spokesperson said in statement to GeekWire. “We know riders rely on shared e-bikes and e-scooters on a daily basis for convenient, emissions-free transportation, and we’re prepared to offer our support to ensure there is no lapse in service for Seattle residents and visitors.”
SDOT said Wednesday that it is evaluating next steps while it expects Lime, Veo and Bird to continue offering bike and scooter share services.
