DENVER BUSINESS JOURNAL - With the proliferation of scooters in Silicon Beach over the past few months, Santa Monica wants to see if it can wrangle the electric vehicles — and make some money in the process. And Denver, which has seen a similar burst in electric scooter use, should take note.
The California beach town’s city council voted unanimously on Tuesday evening to start a 16-month pilot program on Sept. 17 that allows startups such as Santa Monica’s own Bird and Silicon Valley rival Lime to keep their shared scooters on the streets — with some fees and restrictions, reported the Los Angeles Times.
For starters, companies will have to apply for a permit and pay a $20,000 annual operator fee, plus a $130 annual charge per device.
There will be a cap on the number of companies that can deploy personal electric vehicles in the city: two for scooters and two for bikes. (Lime, which expanded its scooters to Silicon Beach just last week, has both types of vehicles.)
