Public Works Committee - Regular Meeting

Hey Denver, it's time for this bi-weekly meeting of the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee of Denver City Council. Join us for the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee starting now.

Great. It looks like we're on air. Good afternoon. My name is Flor Alvidrez and I have the honor of chairing the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee. I just want to look at the producer and make sure that we are good. Going? Okay. Okay, great. My name is Flora Lideres. I also have the honor of representing the districts of Lucky District 7. So I would like to start with introductions from my colleagues. Councilwoman, Council President, you want to start? Great. Good afternoon.

Diana Romero-Campbell, Southeast Denver District 4.

Good afternoon. Darrell Watson, Fine District 9.

Good afternoon. Amanda Sandball, Northwest Denver District 1.

Chris Hines, Denver's Perfect 10.

Good afternoon. Kevin Flynn, Southwest Denver's District 2.

Well, thank you. And I do believe we have a council member online. Just want to check. Is anybody online? Well, we will welcome whoever is online once we make sure that's up and running. But we can go ahead and get started with our very exciting presentation today on PO. Still haven't gotten that down. But yeah, take it away, Nick, if you want to introduce your team and take it away with the presentation.

Very good. Elaine is actually going to run our point guard on this for us, but I'm very happy to introduce the team here today. Good to see everyone. I'm Nick Williams. I'm a deputy manager at DOTI.

Elena McWhorter, DOTI legislative liaison.

Ryan McCann, you're shared back and scooter program manager. All right. So we've got, of course, slides here for you today, but just kind of wanted to do a little opening to kind of set the tone for today's presentation. We are now about four months in. It seems crazy that it's been four months since... since starting this program, but we are certainly are in four months in now. You know, I think the transition is proceeding on there. I think we are, there's a lot of, I think very exciting things. And we're going to talk about some of the things that we really want to celebrate, you know, things around access program take up, how the vehicles are being utilized, just use on that, kind of how they're dispersed usage has really done a nice job of dispersing throughout the whole city. But we'll also talk about I think some very apparent challenges that remain in the program on here. These are challenges that since the very beginning of scooters, and I know a number of you have been here since that magic day when scooters first landed on our streets on there. And the ongoing challenge of first kind of reckless riding, specifically folks riding on sidewalks, and then folks parking in a manner that is not compliant with ADA and that is just not thoughtful and respectful in a way that respects our folks that are using our pedestrian infrastructure on there. We are still very excited about this program. Just a reminder, I think some of the three things that I've been most pleased with that we as a city came up with, just a reminder, of course, we will soon, I think in the next few months, get our first revenue share from this program. an amount between one and two million, depending on kind of how the numbers are working out at that point. We've had great take up on our access program. I think the proportion of our rides is about 40%. About 40% of every ride out there today is an access ride. And that was, I think, certainly heard that very clearly from city council on that, and that certainly aligned with our goals around that. And then we do believe, and we'll talk a lot about technology today, because that is a big element of that rider behavior and how we do our best to manage that rider behavior. But we do believe we have superior technology out there. Of course, during the procurement process on there, we did, for this time, we did actual hands-on ridership, riding each of the vehicles of the final candidates. But really, those three things I think we're still very excited about. Here comes the but on there. There's been a lot of conversation about our role on that and our role in relation to VO. And what we want to reinforce and we'll do it a number of times through this presentation is in this relationship, we are the regulators, VO is the licensee. It is our responsibility and we take our responsibility very seriously to ensure that to the greatest extent possible, VO is complying with both ordinance On there, and I think there's some opportunity to talk about ordinance as well as the agreement on there. And, you know, I think kind of 1 of the big things we were talking with councilman Hines over the last couple of weeks prior to the prior program. Of course, we set that program up in 2020. On there, and we had, we had had a pretty decent idea, but we were looking at maybe a year or so of scooter data still very and scooter experience still very new in the whole lifestyle of a life cycle of an entire industry on there. 5 years later, I think 1 of the big changes we've been able to implement and I think kind of. working in collaboration with city council. Certainly the legislation last year that spoke and put into code, good old chapter 54, specific clauses around rentable scooters that allow us to have some more teeth on there. And so I think that is the opportunity. I think we are grateful for that opportunity to be able to more effectively manage this program. It is a very popular program. That's always been the case. It is our responsibility to make sure it is running in its best regulated form possible on that and certainly more work to be done on that. But with that, we'll get into what we'll be talking about today and I'll hand it over to Elena.

Thanks, Nick. As Nick mentioned, we're gonna run through quite a lot of information about the program today, but quick rundown for you. Overview and history that we normally tee it up with. Why does Dottie love to have this program to enhance micro mobility and accessibility in our city? Some of the program benefits. to our users and then we're gonna move into our strategies on how we're gonna move or lay out a roadmap essentially to how we continue progress on sidewalk riding mitigations and orderly parking. And then we'll get into our Ride With Respect education. So as we know, we always need more education for our users and hopefully today we'll help provide some of that for anyone watching online or for some of the materials that we can hopefully share after the fact so people know where they're allowed to ride and park. And then last, we'll wrap up with customer service and if you're in need of assistance, how you get that. So first, with the overview, we do want to highlight the program continues to be very popular, offering equitable, affordable, and accessible rides. Ridership is up 12% in the same time period of May and June of 2025 to 2026. So as in the first two months, riders in Denver with VO have taken over 1.34 million rides. We are continuing to evolve the program again through the deployment of these riding and parking strategies and education and we need city council, we need community, we need our partners out in the community to help us amplify our reach for education on where people can park and ride. I will just caveat that a lot of the data in the slides are capturing our Q2 report that you all received. That is May 1st through June 30th, but there are a few spots where I'll highlight kind of what the data is now compared to two months ago since, as Nick said, we're officially in four months. One of the big things that I think we really want to celebrate is that we have in the first two months over 8,000 access program users income verified and utilizing the program. You may recall that that was about 8,000 was our goal with the previous vendors. That was the average number of access users per month. And so we really were targeting that. And I'm happy to say that even since June 30th, as of August 31st, we're now over 11,000 access users. And as Nick mentioned, they make up about 42% of total rides to date. So again, very popular for those individuals who really utilize the program to get to work, to get to transit, to get to groceries, commercial hubs, all of those great things. Also wanna highlight that the Denver resident program is a new one where individuals who are residents in Denver are also getting a discount if they're not income qualified for the access program. So on Denver resident accounts, we're over 9,000 and they make up about a little over 180,000 rides in the first two months. DOTI and VO are both committed to growing this program safely and responsibly. And like Nick mentioned, we share your goals of ending reckless sidewalk riding and making a more tidy public realm, particularly with our parking corrals and mandatory parking zones. And so we're really working towards progressing those two items and looking forward to sharing how we're gonna do that in this presentation. Quick reminder of why DOTI supports our shared bike and scooter program. I think you all know this, that this is how we provide affordable and accessible transportation options. There's over 21, almost 22,000 trips every single day on average in Denver. In our survey that we conducted last year, we heard loud and clear from our users that they are riding to get to work, to get to healthcare, to get to transit stations. We also know that this is an important tool that replaces car trips. So if people want to do a shorter trip or maybe a last minute trip rather than calling an Uber or a Lyft, they can find a scooter or a shared bike hopefully nearby and get where they need to go. And then last, we're excited that We've been working, partnering with RTD on their first last mile program where we will have pilot stations at the University of Denver, so DU, and NOC stations where individuals using VO will be able to get their first and last mile free when accessing those two light rail stations. Here's a graph you've seen before, but really just emphasizing that we believe that the transition of the program and vendors this summer has been incredibly successful. The last couple of years, we've topped out about 6.6 million rides annually, and we're on track to achieve about that same amount. And I'll remind everyone that one of the things What we didn't want to do with this program was see a drop in ridership through the transition months, recognizing that we didn't want people to find out that there's a new vendor on day one and them not being able to get to work or not be able to get to a doctor's appointment. And so we were really excited to see that ridership has continued to grow even through this transition. And I think that the education and outreach that we've been doing in order to really amplify people to get enrolled in the new access program or the resident program or get enrolled when they find a scooter on the streets has been very successful. And that VO has scaled up to 9,000 fleet in an incredible amount of time. So we were really happy to see that as well. Here, you all know this slide as well, but we wanted to just take a moment to acknowledge that we know that the shared bike and scooter program touches a lot of people, residents and visitors in a lot of different ways. Whether you're a property owner and you have devices parking in front of your business door, or a homeowner who feels that they're encroaching on your private property, or if you're just walking around in your neighborhood or downtown and you're experiencing them. passing by. We recognize and acknowledge all of those concerns, and we share those concerns, and we want to emphasize that a lot of the strategies we're going to go through are going to help progress those challenges, but that those concerns really informed the last 18 months to two years that brought us through the procurement, the legislative changes, and now the new license agreement with BO. So again, Veo did an incredible job scaling up to 9,000 devices in the Denver market between their e-bikes and e-scooters. On the right, you can see the breakdown of their types of devices. So across the 9,000, they've got about 2,500 that are the standing e-scooters. Then they've got about 5,000 of the Cosmos seated scooters. 1,500 of the Apollo tandem and cargo, and then 50 of the new Rover trikes. And here we just want to emphasize that one of the things that set VO apart in the procurement was them flipping the ratio of seated to standing devices. So here you can see that now over 70% of the fleet is a seated device. And on top of that, over 75% of all rides being taken are being taken on a seated device. And so not only is that great because we feel it offers more stability, it's more intuitive for riders to know that if you are on a seated device that you should be in a bike lane or you should ride where bicycles typically ride.

Before we go on to the next slide, one thing just want to call out at this point. Of course, you see in here electric motors capped at 15 miles an hour, and that's across the board. I think one thing we've seen and we've heard, I think there is sometimes some conflation of the e-moto conversation that's going on right now. And these are the electric... There are electric motorcycles in my book that may not be how they're regulated on there, but these are the ones that can go 30, 50, 60 on there. And I know there is discussion around legislation on that, and that's something we're absolutely supportive of on there. But always want to make sure that the public understands that these are by law, by regulation, by contract, limited to that 15 miles an hour. Thanks, Nick.

And then just, sorry, reminder on that last slide of the different prices. Again, the affordability piece was a big part of the procurement. So base rate is $1 to unlock, $0.39 per minute for riders. Income eligible riders get that 60 minutes free every single day, $0.15 a minute for any time over 60 minutes. Discounted right for Denver residents, still the dollar to unlock, but then we drop down to 25 cents per minute for those Denver residents. And then we still have our opportunity areas. So if you initiate a ride in an opportunity area that is geographically defined, you are at a rate of 13 cents a minute.

Now you can go ahead, thanks.

Okay, so there's lots of riders. Where are they riding? You may remember this graph as well, but what is different from the last time you saw it is how much of that bright pink and purple you see outside of the downtown core. And so one of the things we're excited about with this switch in vendors is that we've seen citywide distribution of the devices improve significantly. So some of our far northeast, southeast, and southwest districts are seeing more ridership than they ever saw with prior vendors.

And that's something that we require as a condition of the agreement is to get that dispersed ridership. So they're not all concentrated just. Now, let me be clear by far the most are in downtown on there, but really getting that expansive deployment of those to make sure that that as many folks as possible have the opportunity to utilize these.

And then something we found interesting was that if you account for our access users, our resident accounts, and the billing zip codes of the riders, about 75% are considered local riders. So really a program that serves our residents to get around and improve their quality of life in their community. VEOs, single day record. You're driving too fast, Nick. You tell me when to change.

Sorry, guys. Sorry.

Yes, take 15 mile an hour cap, please. VO's single day record was August 21st at almost 35,000 trips in a single day. And again, you saw all those top destinations. They continue to be critical for work, transit, housing, and health care. Okay, now I'm ready. The equity programs, again, a really big component of this program. 63% of all rides right now are taken at discounted rates, so that includes our access programs and our Denver resident rates. 42% are free or near free, so this is specifically our access users. That's about 9,200 trips per day. Again, we're over... This is just for the first two months through June 30th. 8150 income verified access program members receiving that 60 minutes of free ride time per day. 9,100 verified resident accounts and then again our opportunity areas. We wanted to just highlight some of these graphs from RIDE report that you can see since May on the top one. The top line is our total Total trips by day and then our access trips where you see kind of hover around that 9 to 10,000 per day. And then on the bottom you see the access program transition rates where we really emphasizing on May 1st. We wanted to be sure that no one fell through the cracks. And you can see that when VO came online and through the instant access period, we saw a pretty big spike in access program utilization, being sure that we cast a very large net to get people into that access program. And then from there, starting to verify incomes to scale it down to where we see that about 11,000 users today.

So to be clear that precipitous drop is post verification. So we definitely had folks that signed up either mistakenly or knowingly for the access program, did not have that, but that was something as we had our conversation with you, we felt was that was a cost we were willing to bear to have some ineligible riders to really smooth that account. And so that's why the precipitous drop, but of course you can see the continuing increase, This is, like I said earlier, the three things that I think we're most excited about right now. Getting that check, that revenue sharing check, good technology, but really the growth of this access program and really for this continuing to be a tool for folks to have low-cost transportation option, which we've seen previously can allow folks to access things like jobs and things that they couldn't otherwise.

Alright, so that was all the exciting great things that came out of the first quarterly report. We're going to shift now into education and where can you ride, where can you park, how do we get users to have more responsible behaviors and it starts with knowing what's expected of them. So first, where can you ride? You can ride a shared e-bike or e-scooter wherever a regular bike would ride. So that can be in bike lanes or bikeways, it can be on shared-use trails, and it can be on our roadways. For everyone out there right now, you cannot ride your e-scooter or your e-bike on a sidewalk unless it is in the block where you are parking the device, and if so, you must reduce your speed to six miles per hour or less. At the same time, you must also yield to pedestrians, and we encourage you to pass on the left and announce yourself, use your turn signals, and wear a helmet. On the right, you'll see our Riding with Respect flyer that I included in the email attachments for you all, where again, we're reminding people, obey traffic lights, follow the rules of the road, be respectful and responsible, be considerate of pedestrians, yield, use a helmet, all of those great things. So would love any opportunity to share this far and wide for people to know.

Education is one element and an important element of this. We'll also talk about kind of the technology tools that we'll be utilizing, but education absolutely is one of the elements needed to reduce the bad behavior that we're seeing.

Yes. Perfect segue. So what are some of our sidewalk riding mitigations? How do we get people to ride, park responsibly, and where they're supposed to be? So first, the education. Second, we have to provide safe and dedicated spaces for all of our users. And so this is where we're really going to shift into discussing parking zones next. building out our corral network so that there is the parking density for people to park in the appropriate space that has been designated for them. VO has every device equipped with GPS technology. This is how they track where the devices are and determine if it's in the street or on the sidewalk. And right now, they've added the audible alerts. So that is our safety feature that tells riders in real time if they're riding on the sidewalk to not ride on a sidewalk. Yeah. The second piece to how that audible alert works is we have geo-fenced sidewalks that are adjacent to bike lanes as a first step so that when we are telling people to please not ride on a sidewalk, there is a safe bike lane close by that they can be routed to or see. So we're doing the audible alerts to educate and deter. We're continuing to also build out what's called our slow zones. And so this is also utilizing our GPS technology where we geofence an area to slow devices when they enter it. And so some of the first areas that we're deploying this technology, one of the first was actually with Denver Public Schools during that instant access period where we heard a lot of feedback about concerns of youth and minors riding, and so we instantly worked with DPS to create slow zones around their schools to deter riders from speeding around and utilizing the devices to get to and from school. You may say, why a slow zone and why not a no-ride zone? Because we're trying to balance teachers, staff, parents, other people who may be utilizing these devices to get to and from those properties. We also have no parking zones that we are working, we've established, but we are partnering with DPR, Denver Parks and Recreation, on refining those as needed with their operations teams. And then up on the right, you'll see one of the strategies we began on August 10th. So you have the audible alert telling people where to appropriately ride. And what we've done is that if we're seeing repeat offenses or if we're seeing egregious behaviors, we've implemented a user violation schedule. And so on the first and second offense for any individual account, you will receive a warning and education. On the third offense, you'll receive $5 fine. And on the fourth offense, you'll receive a $10 fine and an account suspension. And so here we're on the one hand utilizing the carrot approach that we're hoping captures the majority of our writers and our users. On the other hand, we've got a little bit of our stick approach where those especially bad actors are receiving financial penalties and potential repercussions for those behaviors.

Just expanding on kind of the regulatory role that Dottie takes, I think this was a good example on there. Certainly hearing the concern from the community, seeing the concern from the community, talking to a number of you. This was a strategy we had planned to implement. We did direct VO to pull that timeframe ahead and August 10th initiating that so we can start to see the benefit of that early.

So other areas that you'll see slow zones already established are around the Cherry Creek Mall, Coors Field during game day, big events, Wincoop Plaza in front of Union Station, Larimer Square and 16th Street. And we're working with VO to utilize sidewalk riding data that they've collected along with the various community feedback we're receiving to expand slow zones. Yes. So an added safety feature in addition to the audible alerts is VO's LiDAR technology. So this is an added layer of detection that can identify differences in speeds in objects. And so this can be beneficial for all riding behaviors, including sidewalk riding. so that if people are getting on the sidewalk as they are supposed to be, if they're parking their device at that six miles per hour within the block, if they're coming up behind someone about to hit them, that LIDAR is the added safety feature that detects a person or an obstacle nearby that is stopped. And so this is something that we're rolling out on the devices right now. We've got, I think about 1500 to 2000 devices currently installed and we continue to roll that out as well. All right, so went through a little bit about where people can ride. but where can people park? So the box on the left is really for our riders. Riders can park above the curb providing pedestrian clearance. So this can be in the tree lawn or it can be adjacent to the building so long as there is that ADA clearance there. It can be below the curb where a car is allowed. It can be in a physical corral. It can be in a geo-fenced corral and it can be at bike wrecks. So a lot of these you may see overlap. For instance, one of our big priorities right now is building out those physical corrals to support the density needed for mandatory parking zones. And a lot of those corrals, we want to have the amenities like bike racks that support both the shared program and private mobility users both. VO's role in how we build this out, they're helping us identify locations for additional corrals so that we can implement our mandatory parking zones, beginning with the Union Station neighborhood by the end of this year. They do photo auditing of their parking, so this is when you have to end your trip and take a photo of where you've parked so they can audit what trends are and what challenges are. And then providing, again, education and customer service around mis-parked devices. One thing you may notice is all of their devices now have a QR code. Excuse me. They now all have a QR code to report issues or challenges that anyone can scan and utilize whether you're a program user or not. One of the challenges we faced in the past were individuals having to go to a website to report an issue and having that just additional step or barrier or challenge to reporting. And so now that QR code provides anyone just in real time to be able to scan it and report in that instant. And then with Dottie's role, we're permitting the parking corrals, we're assessing them for appropriate locations, conflicts with a neighborhood or community or other projects or construction coming up. We're doing the data analysis, so we're really excited that we have a lot of data around sidewalk riding that we've never had access to before to help us identify where do we need more bike lanes? Where do we need more parking corrals? Where do we have hot spots? When do we have hot spots? Is it a time of day or a seasonality thing? So really excited to be able to dig into that a little deeper moving forward. Vendor oversight, again, we're making sure that VIA is living up to their promises and expectations and service level agreement expectations, really trying to keep focus on what we want them to achieve. And then last, Dottie's role is signage of these corrals and where you can park, where you can ride, and education. So how do we help VO amplify program education and information that isn't vendor specific, but we need people to just know where can they ride and where can they park, whether it's a private or a public device.

You know, and I think that is a unique point over the past 5 plus years. Now, I think when this 1st started. Electric scooters out there 99% of them don't quote me on that data. The vast majority of those were rentable lime or if the time lived or whatever scooters we have seen over the last. period uh since these have done you're seeing a lot more personally uh uh owned scooters not necessarily the rented ones on there and all of this of course all of the the regulation about where to ride and where to park that applies to them too of course we don't have an agreement or direct regulatory oversight over personally used vehicles on there but it does have that benefit

All right, and parking strategies continued. Again, I mentioned we're really prioritizing building the corral density for the Union Station mandatory parking zone that is required by legislation by December 31st of this year, and then expanding that to the Central Business District in areas of five points by July 1st of next year. This is where you'll see on the bottom right, this is what it looks like in the app to be in a mandatory parking zone. So you are going to see these P's to indicate parking that you have to go and find the physical or the geo-fenced corral to physically end your ride in a mandatory parking zone.

I just want to tag on that these P's are currently configured in the app right now, so you can find them. They're just not turned on to be mandatory to park there right now.

Thank you for the clarification. But this is what we are building towards right now and providing that density of parking so that people don't get frustrated or abandoned devices in the mandatory parking zone. So again, the purpose is to give riders that designated place to park and reduce sidewalk clutter in high pedestrian areas and high commerce areas. We have 280 existing parking corrals across the city. As part of the new license agreement, VO will be adding 150 total new corrals, of which we are aiming to do 40 by the end of year to support the mandatory parking zones downtown.

the regulatory requirement being 150 by the end of the three-year term of this agreement. Yes.

VO is also utilizing a carrot approach with what they're calling lucky zones. People who park in a mandatory or in a corral downtown may find a lucky zone where they're going to get a discount off of their ride for parking appropriately and where they're supposed to be. Parking is also critical for our large event management as we know, special events, sporting events, concerts. We had an exciting summer of all of our festivals that were in our downtown core and so VEO has been working with a lot of different entities to scale up rapidly to support those events and parking around those as well, including creating slow zones and geo fences as needed. And Q2 parking violations, we just want to highlight within the report that 82% of the reported violations were resolved within a two-hour window. And we recommend that people with reporting issues, again, utilize that QR code up there that's on the device. It says, how's my parking? Scan it there. Or you can go online through the website, or you can email hello at voride.com.

And this is the fastest way to get parking issues addressed on there. This goes directly to the folks that can address that. We do of course work with 311 and we always will work with y'all's offices on there. But this really is the fastest you cut out the middle people on this and the fastest way to do that.

Here's just a visual to demonstrate on the left. Where we have our, sorry, nope. On the left is the density of trip ends for rides. So the very dark purple is where the most trips are being ended. Down to the lightest of yellow is the least amount of trips that are being ended. And then the overlay on the right is where our current parking corrals are. So we've got to be able to align that parking corral infrastructure with where people are ending rides so that they know that there's a designated place for them to go. All right, so some safety considerations. You're hearing a lot right now about brighter education, layered technologies, and then the third kind of What is it? Chair of the stool, the third leg of the stool is the built infrastructure. And so having all three of these is kind of an endless cycle of how we improve the program and the experiences of riders and non-riders alike. And so you've heard today we're working on a lot with VO around the GPS, the slow zones, the... mandatory parking zones, the LIDAR that's now coming online. So we've got a lot of new technologies that we're really excited about. We're building out that infrastructure via the parking corrals. So designated those spaces for people to park and ride. And then our enhanced education and engagement. On the bottom right here you'll see a flyer that VO distributed again when we were hearing a lot of feedback around youth riding. So this was distributed to DPS and a lot of our schools around back backpack giveaway time at the start of school so that kids and parents both could be reminded that your first ride with VO starts at 18 and that is part of our terms and conditions. I'm gonna skip down on my bullets. That was part of how we combated underage riding. We also combat underage riding by requiring an account payment form when you sign up for your account. So the majority of accounts are set up with a credit card. Most children that I'm aware of don't have credit cards, I'm not sure. There is a small group of people who can use prepaid cards to join and so that is one area that we keep a close eye on to be sure that it's being utilized for appropriate purposes. Again, in app age attestation and writer agreement when you sign up, you've got to agree that you're over 18. Or 18 and older, we did the slow zones with Denver public schools and then that that education there. 1 of the other safety considerations I'm going to hop back up now is. the seated, the ratio of seated devices that VO has brought to the table. So again, having 75, 70% of the fleet be seated, 75% of all rides are seated, they're larger wheels, lower center of gravity, improved stability, and more intuitive for riders. So we feel that we are going to see safety improvements in these, through the fleet design itself, in addition to the education components that we're doing. The last bullet at the bottom here We recognize that understanding the full crash picture is not perfect at this point in time. We are working with different entities, different partners, specifically DOTI works with the Department of Public Health and Environment to understand what's called essence data. This is the data that emergency departments citywide use when they are putting cases into their systems. And right now, DDPHE can help us pull the statistics or pull that data utilizing search terms. What we're working with with them and with our public health agencies is creating distinct codes that will separate shared devices from private devices so that we can understand how many crashes are occurring from devices that are capped at 15 miles an hour and under our regulation versus how many are occurring on privately owned devices and do we know what types of devices those are.

And this has been a challenge since the beginning, really, to get that good data. Early on, scooters, this electric stand-up scooters would be classified in with like Vespa scooters or things like that. And now, as Elena said, of course, we want to be able to parse out the rentable scooters under this license versus the privately owned scooters on there. Our concern is still for the safety. We want to make sure that folks riding private scooters are still operating safely as well. But yeah, really trying to get good, solid data to allow us to make very kind of data-driven decisions.

Community engagement, VO has been out and about quite a bit, both before and after their contract took place. So they've had six events just since May 1st. You can see on the bottom right that were included. I said six, that looks like, oh no, that is six.

It's a big number.

Yeah, there's six. Reaching approximately 2,200 individuals. So at these events, they're signing people up for the access account or for the Denver resident account. They're handing out the don't ride until you're 18. They're reminding people of appropriate riding and parking behaviors. And then pre-launch, there were 16 events that were specifically targeting that access user transition and pre-enrollment. You may have seen on July 28th, the first in the nation Rover tricycle was launched. So a very cool adaptable device that not only supports individuals with maybe mobility or stability concerns, but it supports a large number of users for different reasons. We've seen people take these to get to Union Station with their luggage to take the train to the airport. We've seen them take into grocery stores to pack up with your groceries. I think there's a lot of different utilizations here for the trike and we're excited to see how we can scale it out citywide. Right now it's predominantly in the Central Business District and Union Station area as we determine how people are utilizing it. And then last, VO is required to distribute 1,350 helmets every single year. And in the first two months, they've distributed 575 helmets. So well on their way to meeting that expectation there. Last, just reiterating a whole laundry list of different educational techniques that we're going through here. So again, starting with the audible alerts for riders in real time, educating them to please not ride on the sidewalk. you also get a lot of in-app messaging particularly those users who we are tracking the data who are repeat offenders we can send them tailored education vo also has what they're calling downtown ambassadors that support individuals but then they've also recently watched launched a more specific group called the sidewalk street team that is handing out this uh stay in your lane campaign encouraging people, ride in a bike lane or on the street. You keep the sidewalks clear for all users. And if you pledge, you get $5 in ride credit. Since yesterday, there have been 2,000 pledges. So we are hoping that this reaches a lot of individuals and gives them that financial push to get up to speed.

Or down to speed.

Yes, or stay in your lane. There's a reason they called it that. Continuing to work with a number of community partners, building out those relationships so that we can expand our reach and get to the people that we feel need the education or need support the most. And then you'll continue to see them at a number of in-person events. And again, on-device decals. So anytime we can, well, let me just take a step back. The devices also say no riding on sidewalks on them, all of the devices. So it is also on that decal. It is in the audible alert, it's in their app. So hitting people from many different angles to educate them on where they should be. And then city council engagement. I hope that you all will continue to invite us to events in your district or tabling at your open houses or providing information for your newsletters. Whatever it may be to better support your residents and the things you're seeing in your unique districts, we want to be able to respond to those in a timely and efficient manner. So last, how do you do that? Anyone can stay up to date through VO's website at voride.com backslash Denver, including a calendar of events where you can find them out in the community. Again, you can reach VO's customer support via their website or in the app specifically. You can also call them at this phone number or email hello at voride.com. If you feel that VO's customer service has not responded to your inquiry in an appropriate manner, we encourage you to elevate that to DOTI's customer support inbox, micromobility at denvergov.org. And then just a couple other resources for you. DOTI's website for the program is denvergov.org backslash ride with respect. You'll find a number of educational materials on our website as well. And then ride report where you can get the data directly.

One note on this, and you may have heard this from your residents, and pull me a culpa on this. Our inbox, I think we under, well I don't think, I know we underestimated the volume of emails coming in. We've gotten behind on that and recognize that that's not acceptable. at this point. We've made some adjustments so that the project team can have some more time to do this on there and fully committed to getting that up to current on there. This is one of the bumps of this transition that we certainly underestimated on there, but really are committed to making sure that folks feel like they're getting good customer service from the department as well.

All right. We need your help. I do hope that this provides some clarity for where people can park and ride. I hope that we can amplify the reach. Shout out to Council Pro Tem Gonzalez Gutierrez, who put out a Instagram video very quickly saying, we got to talk first. Don't ride these devices on sidewalks. And then we've had a number of... Instagram from the mayor as well, amplifying for people where they can park and ride. So I want to help educate. But also you heard a lot today about the parking corrals, mandatory parking zones, slow zones. If you all have ideas about specific areas in your district where you want to see this, you want to open up the dialogue, please let us know and we can start having that conversation. And then helping us with our partnerships with Denver Health, DDPHE, RTD, Parks and Rec, libraries, more. We know that there's a lot of opportunity for creating designated infrastructure with our city partners and a lot of appetite to do so. So we look forward to continuing that dialogue as well.

Great, awesome. Well, thank you so much for this great presentation. We do have a full queue, as you can imagine. And I will start off with Councilman Flynn.

First off, I want to make sure I understand. All the devices are limited to a top speed of 15 miles an hour. So I'm wondering if that sort of induces people to want to use the sidewalk. Because if they have to ride in a street, and be limited to 15 miles an hour, I understand I would not want to go faster than that on a scooter anywhere, but in a street, especially where there might be vehicles going 20, because that's our default speed limit, but even higher if it's an arterial street, we might be actually pushing people toward the sidewalk to stay out of traffic. I don't know if there's a solution to that, if it's a variable thing. If we see they're in the street, could they go 20 or 25? That's a technical question I don't know if you're prepared to answer, but what are your thoughts on this?

Yeah, and that's been the challenge since the beginning. Back in the very early days, our first iteration, so when these first started, there was actually no legal definition that said where you could ride these. You may remember the term toy vehicles was thrown around on there, like a, well, you know what a toy vehicle is. on there so our first iteration of the ordinance on where you could ride um and i don't know who was doing this at the time he probably didn't know as much as he should have uh on there but it was uh aligned with segways and i kind of thought of us ourselves as the successor to the segway regulators on there. It's obviously taken a very different path. And it was that if the road was 30 miles an hour or greater, you could ride on the sidewalk at six miles an hour or less. If it was 30 miles or if it was less than 30 miles an hour or there was a bike lane, you must ride in the sidewalk on there. And so I remember the day that I was explaining that a group had come in and I articulated it and it took 10 minutes to articulate and I said, oh my gosh, Of course no one understands this. This is very complex. So that's when we took a second pass at it and aligned it with bicycles. So now it's, can you ride a bicycle there? Then you can ride a scooter there. Can you not ride a bicycle? You cannot ride a scooter there. And so I think 15 miles an hour is still the right speed. I think most cyclists, now this is Denver, so there's folks that can go significantly faster, but I think most cyclists top out at about 15, 12 to 15 on there. But that is the challenge with this. Even with the geofencing technology that we talked about, of course there are limitations and we've tried to be very consistent. Geo GPS technology, which is what basically all top end scooter providers utilize has limitations. And those limitations get greater in downtown areas with tall buildings on there. And a real fear is that if we are too tight on the GPS geofencing for sidewalks, on there, we will get in a situation where someone is riding in the road, maybe downtown, in mixed traffic, and that geofence will ping and misread that they are on the sidewalk on there and slow them down in mixed traffic. And that's something we absolutely want to avoid on there. That's where kind of what was talked about, the layered technology approach, and this is another one of the elements why VIA was selected, is that layered technology approach. So utilizing technology like LIDAR And I'll certainly, if there's questions on the technology, I do want to defer to Vio, who is here today. I want to make sure that they're speaking for their technology. But the intent of that technology on top of the GPS technology is to be able to sense that there is a person coming. I'm approaching a person on there, which Shouldn't be in the street generally. Now, if it is, you still don't want to hit that person on there. But making sure that we are kind of having that layered technology to ensure that riders, it is crystal clear that they are not to be riding on a sidewalk. But right now, 15 feels like the right speed. That's kind of a national standard.

Thank you. Tagging on to that is part of the contracted agreement that's 15 miles an hour max. And then we can review this with Amy, the manager, on a quarterly basis too. So if there's interest or concern about increasing those speeds, we can recircle with VL.

The speed of this technology, no pun intended, but the speed of the technology is pretty incredible. I was in a driverless Tesla in Idaho. Over the weekend and the vehicle on a two-lane road with no shoulder, the car slowed down for a cyclist in front of us until oncoming traffic was clear and then passed in the oncoming lane. It actually stopped for three wild turkeys crossing the street. So turkeys are smaller than pedestrians generally, so the technology is just advancing quickly. I'd just like to ask that we keep an eye on these changes. Absolutely. Thank you. And then the last question I have is sort of multi-pronged. It's on slide three on the numbers. I'm a little confused. Excuse me. 1.3.4 million rides taken since May 1st, 180,000 resident account rides. That works out to, I think it said 13 point something percent of all rides are resident accounts. I can't. I can't grok that to use a technology out there. Only 13% of rides are by residents or are not all accounts now registered as resident accounts?

To be clear, those are rides taken by folks that have signed up for and received the resident discount on there. So not necessarily all residents. $144 million, the top number? No, the $180,000. On there, so resident account rides, resident account refers to the, you have signed up for and received the discount. Certainly there is many folks in Denver, I mean, obviously the vast majority have not yet done that. We'd love to see that number go up.

There's 9,177 Denver resident accounts out of 145, almost 146,000 unique account holders, only 9,000, that's like,

It was like 4% or 3% for the resident. That's something we noticed. We did a great job with the access program and we're continuing to work with VO now on the resident program.

So we probably have Denver residents who haven't signed up as a Denver resident to get the discount.

Yes. So we changed the app too. There's an app messaging now to get you better to sign up for the resident pass.

Excellent. And that gets to my last sub question on this. And that is, in my district, I have two zip codes in my district that are not Denver. I have Englewood, 80110, and I have Littleton, 80123. And some of my constituents even have problems with 311, saying, well, you don't live in Denver. Well, yeah, sure I do, because I voted for Councilman Flynn. That's how I know. Okay. And so how are we addressing the problem when people try to sign up and they have an 80123 or an 80110 zip code on their credit card and their bank says, you know, if I were to use it, it would say Littleton 80123. Right, your post office address. Say we don't live in Denver. So how are we addressing this?

I would say right now the way we're addressing it is we're looking towards the future, working with Denver Regional Council of Governments about those regional trips that are happening and how we can get better access for those outside residents as they transition into Denver. But right now the program has been focused on access for Denver residents. Sorry, go ahead.

One moment. I will just, I know I didn't acknowledge at the beginning, but Veo, Alex with Veo is here.

And I think I know what he's going to say and maybe because I think your question was not necessarily about writing cross border. It was ensuring that someone on the border in Denver could get and we are not.

I can take that 1. yes, those individuals can contact customer service, either through the website or email, or they can go to 1 of the in person events with, like, a utility bill that shows that they're a Denver resident, regardless of if it's yeah, I understand you're saying these utility bill do that either.

Yeah.

If they can tell via through customer service, hey, this is a Denver resident. I am in Denver proper. We can verify that address and confirm on the back end that it is so that they can get on.

I'm sure if I could make it defer to apologies for.

Please introduce yourself.

Yes, I will. Alex Keating, Vice President Policy and Partnerships at VEO. That was something that we actually addressed, and apologies for any miscommunication. All of those edge case zip codes are included for the resident program at VEO. So we've taken a little bit of a blunt instrument, but we've actually looked at every zip code that cuts over and ensured that that would be included to make sure there aren't any upset customers.

Never, never.

We'll weed them out.

And that's the last thing. Thank you for noting that. I live in an enclave in my district that I cannot get to without leaving the city and going through a part of Lakewood. And so sometimes it's the people in Grant Ranch or in Marston, in Glenbrook, where I live, who, you know, great, I can pick up a VO scooter and go five blocks and that's it. Because I can't get north of Hamden. And I hope just continue to work with our surrounding jurisdictions to figure out a way that we can take that 2,000 feet to get from a Walmart at Wadsworth to Pinehurst across Lakewood so we can continue on into Denver.

That's exactly what Ryan was adding. We are working with Dr. Cogg to take a more regional approach and there are adjacent jurisdictions who are interested in working with VO so that there can be that cross jurisdiction mobility.

Can I just get some clear, so it's 2,000 feet outside of Denver currently that they can operate? Did someone say 2000?

No, I believe they shut off. It's based on the zip codes.

Oh, yeah. Okay. But how far outside of the city can they?

Not far. I live right at the border pretty close to Yale, and you will often see a number of scooters stopped right at Yale. So it is a block maybe, if that, depending on how the GPS is pinging, but you're not going far.

There was a fun Denverite article that proved all this, where a writer tried to write out to Morrison Red Rocks. And so he got shut off right at the border.

Great. Wonderful. Thank you, Madam Chair. That's all. Thank you, Councilman Flynn. Councilman Hines, you're up.

Thank you, Committee Chair. Thank you for requesting this come to committee. Thank you for being here and thanks for the presentation and the two briefings in advance of this presentation. I see this whole conversation as a great compromise. Yes. between the people who really want micro-mobilities, last mile connections, want alternatives to cars, or just want to get home with an alternative. And then there's also a fair amount of pedestrians who want a reasonable sense of safety and security as they use sidewalks, which were meant for pedestrians and not meant for a whole bunch of litter or things being ridden around at 15 miles an hour. Sidewalks were never designed for anything at 15 miles an hour. And so that's what we're hoping for with the original contract with Lime and Lift. That's what we were hoping for with the legislation. If I can speak on behalf of my co-sponsor can tell me he had a different interpretation, but the idea was to create this compromise. And people at Denver expect us to maintain that compromise. And so when we get that trust expectation eroded, I think that we kind of run into some rough waters. And so when we have more than 30 million scooter trips and fewer than 10 citations for people improperly riding scooters citywide, that predates VL. People see people riding allegedly illegally, I mean actually illegally on sidewalks all the time. And so that's an erosion of trust, right? when the public was told they'd have a new law that would prevent sidewalk riding on July 1st, and yet there's still people riding sidewalks. It's an erosion of trust when there are no actions against the previous vendors. And to be fair, I don't think we've had enough of a relationship with VO to talk about fines or penalties, but when we had no penalties for the previous vendors, that also is an erosion of trust. So you see where I'm going here? Absolutely. So you had mentioned at the beginning of the presentation about oversight. And I want to make sure that we have that. I think July 1st was an opportunity for us as a city to restore that trust. And I think July 1st was a missed opportunity because we still see people riding on sidewalks. We still see scooter litter everywhere. And by scooter, I mean micro-mobility devices. But I think we all get that. And when we see people riding into customer service, like if someone rode into me and they didn't get a response, they would be very unhappy. they can't vote against VO. They can vote against me. But when they write into VO and get no response, or you mentioned, I still, I forwarded you a dozen of the things that I sent to VO. I sent to VO on July 16th. I don't have a response from Dottie either. So... Full responsibility. As of today. So I see that as an erosion of trust. And so... In both of those briefings, I asked about, I think this is the largest deployment of any scooter vendor in the US. DC maybe has, or we're close to the largest. I think DC has multiple vendors. This is a sole source bid, so 9,000 devices all from one vendor, if not the largest close. So I can see that there might be unforeseen things that happened. People still expected July 1st to be the date. So both briefings I said, what about a timeline so that we can say in two weeks, four weeks, whatever the timeline is, we will be back to what the expectation people have that we were going to get on July 1st. Yes.

I still don't see that in the presentation. Where are we with that? So we talked about that, that that is something we agree completely that we want to make sure that we are kind of restoring that trust with the general public. I think we've come a long way. I think having legislation that was passed last year from councilman Watson, I think was very effective in giving us teeth to enforce that, you know, that on top of the agreement, I think we are well situated. situated to truly exercise that oversight responsibility on there. I think so we talked a little bit a few dates on there about that those are related to the ordinance on there. Our assignment we heard that very clearly in our meeting with you is on working and making sure we have very clear dates on when you know LIDAR will be rolled out widely on there. When you know we did pull up ahead the four strikes and you're out on there. And yeah, I think it does. It needs to be, it's a combination of effective oversight, VOs compliance, and then just general accountability to what is required and what's in law and what's in agreement on there. And so that is something we are certainly, we're working with right now kind of as a result of our meetings on there to get beyond just what is statutorily required. That is the baseline. That's not what we're trying to achieve with this program on there and being very clear. So that will come in the coming weeks. I don't want to be too specific and miss it on there. We want you to be specific. I want to, too. Yes. And so that trust continues to be eroded.

Yes. I want to be as specific as possible, too, and honor that trust. But if I give you information that's bad, that's where I feel like I will lose your trust. So I just want to make sure that whatever information we provide to you, that we have it verified. I'm confident within the next...

2 to 4 weeks, we should be able to give a more detailed timeline on when additional technology is expected to be completely rolled out more detail on things like the street engagement team and how that's going more updates on that. Because I agree with you 100%, you know, I think a lot of elements and kind of repeating what I said at the beginning a lot of elements for just 1 second.

Can the producer pull down the presentation for for now? Thank you.

Uh, we, um, a lot of elements of this gone of this program have gone. Well, I think the access numbers have gone well on there. The ridership has not gone as we would have hoped on the ridership on sidewalks has not gone and we hope and I think that is 1 that and kind of miss. Miss parked vehicles are the 2 biggest elements that I think really create that friction between riders and non riders that we want to mitigate absolutely as much as possible on there. So I can commit within the next 2 to 4 weeks to getting a more detailed timeline out to city council on this on when those additional steps will be taken.

Yeah. Okay. And. Second question, I'll get back in the queue in case there's additional time. You mentioned the access ride. One of our contractual commitments was that a percentage of devices would be distributed to underserved areas. Yes. I'm assuming you probably don't have this off the top of your head, but it would be great to see where that distribution is to make sure that you're touting the access program. Are we getting, I think it's 30% of devices should be placed in under 30%?

It's 30% and it's part of the quarterly report that you receive in your council office and that we have online right now. It is under the percentage right now currently in that first quarter and that's what we recognize with VO and we're working towards how do we get that full 30%. It's just below it right now.

And this is an area where we have the, what does MDS stand for, excuse me? Mobility data standard. So this is a general standard applied to all scooter companies managed by a nonprofit, the Open Mobility Foundation. And this is one where we have very good data where you can see where vehicles are deployed, where they're ridden, where they're parked. And so this is something we're very confident in our data and being able to attract and then staying on theme here, making sure that we are enforcing that that is occurring. Because again, that is a huge element of this program is the equitable distribution of the vehicles. Thank you.

Do I get another question?

No, I'm sorry. Thank you. We'll hand it over to the President.

Thank you. And thank you for the presentation. I think listening to the conversation and speaking for Southeast Denver, The VO scooter is so much better. Love the fact that you can sit down and have ridden them myself, and they're nice. I mean, it's really nice. And it is still something very new in Southeast Denver, and it hasn't been at the volume that it has been rolled out. And so I receive a lot of calls about there's 20, I'm saying scooters, but the kind of that you can sit and some are standing and some are the short seat and big seat and I don't have the right term that you have for the names. But you don't see, there'll be 20 that are just kind of in the right of way on the curb, people call about that. Or you will see them sporadically in different neighborhoods and down the street are like three, like one every block and a few every block. So just something different. So it's, I think, a shift of understanding, a cultural shift of having micro mobility. Again, lots of people very excited and a lot of people still learning. and understanding kind of the use of and where the scooters can go. So a lot of the comments or the responses that I get in my office, it's very anecdotal. Somebody sees them here, somebody sees them there. You were talking about data. Is there a way to be able to disaggregate and know kind of like who's riding in the district? Where are they going from point to point? Just so that I have a better understanding, because anecdotally, what I see are the majority of the people writing the scooters are young people and they're writing them to school. I see them in the morning. I see them when out of school. I see them after, you know, I see. you know, two kids on the scooter at the same time and usually, you know, they have their backpacks and you can see they have their sports equipment on them. Like, I mean, they're using the scooters as you would hope that young people would, yet they're probably under the age of 18.

I was just going to ask to clarify that.

And I also don't and very rarely see anybody wearing a helmet. And I don't know if you could talk a little bit more about the data of how of who's writing but also What do we and how are we? ensuring or having some incentive for helmets.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Ryan, would you like to? Sure. When it comes to helmets, VIA is required to provide 100 free helmets per 1,000. That's where I don't.

There's the 1,300 helmets. Thank you. They have 575.

Thank you.

But I think her question is more around, well, are we checking if people are using helmets?

Are we incentivizing?

Or is there something that we could do to encourage more helmet use? And that's part of that outreach and education work with VO to have them engaged at community events and to provide those helmets. But with the city side, we are not monitoring like, yes, the writer does have a helmet on or you can get a credit from the city to wear helmets. So also, Alex, did you want to speak to the data that

Well, I think it's also for me understanding the disaggregating the data so that I just know where people are going to. I absolutely like the idea of the corrals. But at this point, I can't tell you where a good place to put a corral would be in Southeast Denver. I have ideas. I also have a lot of the similar issues. That Councilman Flynn talked about with, we have unincorporated Arapahoe County right in the middle. We are right on the border of where you have a lot of one street in, one street out, and you're in a different county. And so being able to navigate that, I think people have been able to go across. Holly Hills and some other areas. But at the same time, I'm just trying to get a better handle as to where and how the scooters are being used so that I can better inform and work with residents who are asking a lot of questions.

Before Alex goes, if I could, Madam Chair, just respond to the first element.

Please be brief. We have a lot of people.

We can absolutely tell from where to where folks are writing on there. We don't have a lot of personally identifiable information. And I would not be surprised if the vast majority of, and this is an assumption, just based on kind of what we've seen over the years, that the vast majority of the underage writers are utilizing a parent's account on there. And it sounds like in a lot of these cases they're doing it correctly, but it still is not permitted for folks under 18 to be writing on that. With helmets, we did encourage, we did, I'm sorry, require VO to give out helmets, literally. Of course, in Denver, headwind helmets are not required to ride a bicycle on there. So it is not a legal requirement, but it's certainly something we want to incentivize. But maybe, Alex, if you'd be able to expand on the ability of some of that data.

Just really quickly, I wanted to, again, Alex Keating, Vice President of Policy and Partnerships at VEO, wanted to quickly say, so Dottie and the city have that MDS data that can give you a lot of information on origin and destination within your district specifically, all of the council members. We also, of course, are happy to come and give presentations that localize that information. One thing we'll bring that is a little extra on that is some more of the demographic information. We don't collect a lot, but we survey our riders at a pretty decent frequency. That'll help us understand income, why they're using it, what barriers there are, where they're going. So we can give a little bit more color commentary on how that's happening. We'd be happy to do it. We do have a helmet selfie discount. So helmets are not required by law, but actually when someone's riding, they can choose to provide a selfie of a helmet and they'll get a discount on the trip. So we try to incentivize in addition to handing out helmets. Just wanted to mention that. Selfie once they parked.

Thank you.

Okay. And this data, we are using that to plan out corrals locations. I think Elena's point was that if you have any specific locations you're hearing from in your community, we love we're all ears for it. So it's we're not alone. We have a lot of ridership data that we're going off of to prioritize those locations.

And so thank you, Madam chair, and maybe we could just follow up afterwards. There are a lot of trails and different pathways throughout Southeast Denver. It's a sidewalk, but it's also not. And the Highline Canal, there's a lot of, I think, unique aspects that I would love to be able to figure out how we could better address and educate people. We have worked a little bit on Highline, but happy to work more directly with you. Great. Thank you.

Thank you, Madam Chair. With Councilman Hines' question, it was 20% opportunity area requirement. I think I said 30%, so just want to clarify.

Councilwoman Sandoval, you're up next.

Thank you. So thank you all for this. I feel like we're meeting a lot of the metrics that we put into the contract, so that's good. Like if we got audited, I'm always thinking of an audit, right? I think that those are all great. I think one of the issues that keeps coming up in Northwest Denver is this collide on our trails. Because these just, they're different. And so like on the Cherry Creek Trail, on the Platte River Trail, I just keep getting, people think that they're not allowed. And they want people, especially down in Commons Park and that part of it, They want me to run an ordinance on things that they've done. I'm not allowing motorized scooters or things on our trails, public trails. But it gives me pause because I'm like, well, we have e-bikes. And so e-bikes can actually go faster than these. So I don't know how to fix that. When I think of running an ordinance, I think of how something's broken. And so what am I trying to fix? I don't necessarily know how to run an ordinance. And we have e-bikes that go faster than these. But I will say that this sit down, they're wider. So it's a different type of passing that people are going to have to get accustomed to. Because they are wider. I see them outside my office on Platt Street. I'm looking at the trail all the time. and on that yeah and and on that on the trails that don't have two sides on them um there is this conflict i will say i don't know how to fix that conflict and then there's this idea where we put in corrals that they're not allowed to use the corrals because we're subsidizing a private company to use our right-of-way so again i think it's user education, because I know you've all seen all the emails on either Tennyson or Platt. Those are all the corrals that we put in. So people are, I'm like, actually they're being utilized for what they're supposed to be utilized, not on the sidewalk. So I don't even know how to respond to some of these complaints that I'm getting, other than to say, well, they are in the And then there's so many of them there that when people do come on their bikes, they have nowhere to park their bikes.

I think that sounds like great feedback where we can do better with our messaging and provide some resources like a one pager.

If you're getting those questions and like, if you could do a 1 pager, that would be great. Yep, I think you are going to be at the potential large tonight. Because daddy's going to be there for an open house, but these are the things that you're going to hear tonight. Um, because I asked my staff to provide me an overview. Um, and then. So, back to you all are the bear. the receiving end of all of this. But 311 has this issue where it says no issues found when you email them back. And so we've had to fix that issue with other things. That's what's being reported by an attorney in a 311 issue. complaint, they get a reply back from 311 that says no issue found.

Yeah.

And it is an issue. Right. But that means our 311 system is on the back end isn't understanding what the issue is. But we've had that with mistrashed. We've had that with reported sidewalks. We've had that with ice on sidewalks. People will take pictures and then they have, so they fix those to just some feedback that we've gotten. Certainly. And then I think that all of the other ones are pretty much things that you've all went over, but reporting, if we're responsible for implementing the contract, we have to have a robust reporting system, right? And that was one of my concerns about us being the reporting side. So just figuring out how to streamline those before you give a next update would be great. And just the use of them, I really do think having a 1 pager and asking city council to put them in there. I have office hours. I. Have tons of them down on flat street. I mean, central part of the comments park is crazy packed with them. So, if you need to have them, but I will say. We have a lot you, you're the data should speaks for itself. we are getting more ridership under this contract, which is one of the metrics that we wanted to fill, so we are meeting that. And I will say for the comment for kids who have credit cards, I opened a bank account for my kids when they were young, I did. i didn't want them to have access to my credit card if they wanted to go out after and so you can actually have a bank for children it's in cherry creek and you can actually get them a debit card and you can set how much is on that debit card for them to spend and it actually is Learning very at a young age how to do accounting practices. And so I do want to say that. And 2nd of all, I will say, when my kids were younger, my kids had access to my Uber account because I was a city council person or a council aid, and they had to get home sometimes from practice. And I was at a public meeting. I didn't know my kids were using that same access to. do scooters and tell later, but they weren't. I will say my kids were the egregious actors. And we've had some serious deaths on these VO. One just on the outskirts of my council district, just this year, student at Lake. And we had one not on VO, but on 52nd, same thing as a young child going, latino quiero going to junior high and so given that we i feel like it is our responsibility to just do massive education to the parents and i don't know if you've all what we do in our in my council district in my office is we reach out to the schools and we ask them to put information in their newsletters because a lot of times parents Before I started working for the city, I wasn't subscribed for my city council's email. I didn't even go to R&O meetings. I was like, what? I'm going to my kids' soccer game, and I'm all about my kids. I was volunteering in my kids' school. So what we do is we always try to partner with all of the Denver public schools or schools. say hey so I I don't know if you're going to back to school nights or sending video back to school nights the near Northwest neighborhood plan will be at North High School's back to school night but to get to to get to the parents to educate them that they are children really shouldn't be on these scooters you have to go where the parents are and that's at school yeah And we have a great, great partner. We have the city school coordinating committee that the president serves on. I mean, we have to just really utilize every resource because I hope that next year we're sitting around this table and we're not talking about anybody who's died on any scooters because we need so much education. That's one area that we can take off the board for deaths on our road. I mean, don't even start me down the road about bikes. On our desk on our road, that's like, I won't even open up that counter worms. Let's just tackle at least 1 that we do have a little bit of control over concur.

Thank you.

Thank you. Thank you so much. And I just want to, I'm going to read a couple of questions from Councilman Lewis who were having technical difficulties with and then Councilman Watson. And then I did want to open a question from the community member that came to. but Councilwoman Lewis had two questions, which were for the two RTD stations mentioned, are those the highest usage of scooter stations?

in the presentation. How were those selected? I think we would have to look back at the data on that, but they're coordinated with the West Corridor TMA and RTD and Denver Regional Council of Governments. I just talked to Mike before this meeting and he verified that the two locations are there. Initially, you might have seen that the first location is supposed to be Decatur Federal It turns out that location is in an opportunity area where you would get free rides. So we shifted over to Knox Court where there weren't currently free rides. So now you can get that first mile, last mile for free.

Great. And then the second question was for the users that can use prepaid card, what is that exception?

it's not an exception so anyone could use so you could go out and get a Visa gift card and utilize that on there of course we always want to lower the barriers to different payment methods you can do it in person if you want on there but it's not a specific exception it's just rarer the Mac vast majority use a credit card wonderful thank you councilman Watson

I'll be very quick, committee chair. Thank you so much. I just want to make sure we're clear on the technology. And so I know in page three of the report, I personally want to say thank you to Vio, thank you to Dottie. I think this change was necessary, and the data is demonstrating that. But it says every vehicle in the Denver fleet is equipped with sidewalk detection technology, including GPS, LIDAR, and cameras. if every vehicle based on reports you all provided to us has that technology in it what's your kind of step out process to roll out that are you holding back on that technology for a reason when are you rolling that out and then my second question if 90 of the sidewalk rides are scooters Is there a transitional process? For example, are we looking at safer means for the other multimodal options that aren't using sidewalks? If 90% are scooters, are we ramping down scooters maybe and up increasing the bikes because folks are riding the bikes in the bike lanes as we expect of them? First question, very important on technology.

So on the technology, and just to clarify, because how you stated, I could see where there could be some confusion. All vehicles have GPS technology, ridership technology. What is being added on currently is LIDAR technology, and then camera technology will be added on. I want to be clear, Nick.

You all put in writing on page three, you didn't put a caveat. You said all equipment, you said... Every vehicle in the Denver fleet is equipped with sidewalk detection technology, including GPS, LIDAR cameras and other advanced sensors, all of which are consistent with a license agreement technology requirements and. within a DRMC, so maybe get back to me, but that is what you have in writing. So clarify that at another time, because we don't have enough time, but there wasn't a caveat, and I just want to make sure we're clear. If they're all included, what's the process for holding back the rollout of technology? Is it the GPS stuff when it's too close to the bike lane, you think, folks? I just need to make sure that's clear because you're providing us reports saying all of it is there and then you're saying that it's not all in all of the vehicles, but we haven't been writing that it is.

Yes. And I agree when you read that, that's not worded clearly on there. That should have been included. all of these, if not necessarily 100% of all vehicles have all three technologies on there. Does not give me joy.

Let's go to the next one. Understood. Let's go to 90% scooters and then if we know scooters are 90% on sidewalks and everything else, the other vehicle types aren't. What are we thinking? What are we learning from that?

What's the thought process? I think you hit on it. I think as we see where the vehicles are being ridden, as we get better data on which vehicles are being ridden on the sidewalk more than less on there, we could. Typically, we've allowed the market to define, and we do have some parameters in the contract to define the mix of the two vehicles. But if we find that the vast majority of the large wheeled seated vehicles are doing the right thing and the vast majority of the stand-up scooters are not, we certainly have the ability to work with VO to reduce those numbers and build up those numbers. If the the bad behavior is becoming very clearly linked to one technology, yeah, we have the ability, the regulatory authority, to adjust that dialogue.

I appreciate you, Nick. I appreciate you all, Alex. We'll have other questions when this goes further, but I just, I got too many questions to ask, and I apologize, committee chair.

No, I appreciate it. Great questions. I did want to give an audience member a chance to ask a question. If you could introduce yourself, and then go ahead with your question.

Hi, my name is Ed Nera. Been in the District 10 for quite some time. And I've seen these scooters since their evolution of when they were just dropped into the city and there was no regulation or foundation of any kind. So sidewalk riding is by no means a new issue, yet you seem to be treating it like it's a new issue by not having the technology in place to address this. So when do they plan to actually do something effective to resolve this? Because it's not been resolved in six years. I agree. You don't have to agree, just what's going to be done.

So that is what we're talking about, this full rollout of the additional technology on there. We feel, and this is one of the reasons that vehicles were selected, is based on the current state of the market and the current state of technology amongst these, vehicles were as good or better than their competitors during the procurement process on there. And so then the document we talked about earlier, really committing to when will those individual additional technologies, that is something we're happy to commit to here in the next two to four weeks, being able to be very clear on when you will see LIDAR, when you'll see cameras on these. None of these are likely, not one technology will be a silver bullet on this. That's why we're adding in things like the street engagement team on there. But to be very clear, this is not a new problem. We recognize this is one of the biggest threats to this program and really the biggest threat to the success of being able to implement this. So definitely concur with you on that.

Thank you so much. If you could keep it to just maybe one more comment. We are already at time for the meeting.

Is tandem riding allowed with these vehicles? So one unique thing about Veo is they do have vehicles that do permit. They have the long kind of what I would call a banana seat that allows two people to be on that vehicle. They're designed for that. All other types that have a stand-up scooter or have just a single seat are not.

There's no regulation that prohibits two riders at one time? No.

Not that I'm aware of. I could be mistaken, though.

There is a reference to ordinance about a certain bike where unless the bike is equipped for two passengers, you're not allowed to do that. That was my interpretation.

When the first scooters came out, there was supposed to be an ordinance.

I appreciate that. We can talk more after the meeting. But we do have to wrap up. The meeting is supposed to end at 3. But I want to thank you all for the information. I will say I'm happy to say that I was wrong about being able to get them out and into community on time. So that's a win. I appreciate that. I think we do have a long way to go. I think the 311 issue is real when you go to 311. I don't think we're tracking properly the issues because it does say to refer to VEO instead of report to 311 when you go to 311 page. And then Houston Lake Park and South Broadway for places for sidewalks and slow zones. Slow zones, Houston Lake Park, Broadway has a bike lane, so let's get the VEOs off the sidewalk there.

Yes.

That's all I have. Thank you so much. I appreciate you all making time. Thank you for being here and thank you for the public for also coming to share some thoughts. I appreciate you. Thank you. And we do have a few items on consent. Since no one pulled them off, we will just keep them on consent and this meeting is adjourned. Thank you.