I'm a huge fan of the Marvel Comics movies, whether it's Iron Man, Black Panther or Spiderman: Far from Home, the latest installment of the superhero saga.
The Avengers is a 2012 film that introduces moviegoers to the concept of this team of superheroes putting their brains and brawn together to fight off the bad guys, which in this case happens to be an invasion force of aliens that descend through a wormhole over Manhattan.
With little warning, these aliens drop into the city and disperse, within moments covering just about every available surface and wreaking havoc on the city's population.
I couldn't help thinking of that scene as the discussion about scooters recently rolled into Northwest Arkansas.
At a recent meeting in Fayetteville, Assistant City Attorney Blake Pennington told City Council members a rent-a-scooter company had several months ago informed the city of its plans to drop several hundred scooters on Fayetteville. The city, Pennington said, asked the company to hold off. "The company didn't like that, so they did what any big national company does: Hired a lobbyist and found a friendly legislator and got a law passed," he said.
The legislation was introduced by Grant Hodges, lawmaker from Rogers. For you Avengers fans, I suppose that might make him Loki.
That law is the Electronic Motorized Scooter Act of 2017, which is more or less the wormhole in the example cited above. The law requires cities to allow the introduction of rentable scooters onto their streets. Pennington said state Rep. David Whitaker of Fayetteville became a co-sponsor of the legislation so he could add a few provisions allowing cities to regulate the businesses and how scooters can be deployed and used.
Maybe that makes Whitaker the first Avenger in my example.
Literally, the rubber is about to meet the road. The state law takes effect July 24. Towns across the state most attractive to scooter deployment -- naturally, college towns full of tech-savvy young people ready to use smartphone apps that unlock the rent-a-rides -- are themselves speeding to deploy some rules and regulations so that these large companies don't ride roughshod over the population they're hoping to profit from.
Or, as Pennington put it in a
memo to the City Council, to "temper the effects" of these new devices being scattered around downtown and other areas.
Bentonville got a taste of what's to come recently when a franchisee for a company called Goat distributed about 20 scooters downtown. The City Council there expects to review an ordinance regulating the devices' operation on public rights of way on July 23.
There are arguments that this scooter invasion can be a good thing. They travel at speeds up to 15 mph, giving people a way to zoom about their daily business within a smallish area without having to hop in a car.
It's telling that Fayetteville's Lioneld Jordan, 10 years into his leadership as mayor, jokes that he'd rather return to the contentious topic of paid parking on Dickson Street than to deal with the scooter invasion. There's always a reluctant Avenger, but they always come around when they're really needed.
What's the big deal? They're
only scooters, right? Well, all I know is Fayetteville regulates those VeoRide bicycles yet they still end up everywhere, laying on their sides or sitting on a sidewalk. They're handy, for sure, but city beautification they're not.
I can easily see scooters, because of their smaller size, becoming even more of an example of urban litter, even if they're useful.
What's next? With the push for autonomous cars -- the kind that drive themselves -- maybe the day is coming when a vendor drops a bunch of those on our towns. I just hope they can brake for scooters and bicycles.
Commentary on 07/14/2019