Arlington County ups number of allowed Bird e-scooters, bikes

Arlingtonians may be more likely to travel on a Bird than any other brand of scooter and this year will have the option of using its e-bikes.

The number of Bird e-scooters in Arlington is increasing to a maximum of 667. The company was also selected to launch a fleet of 150 e-bikes here this year.

“This combined multimodal service will allow us to better serve the sustainable mobility needs of even more riders in the city,” according to Bird.

In a 2022 county evaluation of e-scooter and bike permit applications, Bird was allocated the most, followed by Spin with 650, LINK with 333, Lime with 245 and Helbiz with 105. There is a cap of 2,000 e-scooters and 1,000 e-bikes in the county.

Lime is also permitted to operate 200 e-bikes in Arlington.

Bird can deploy the most e-scooters because it ranked highest on meeting county goals, including to provide high-quality transportation services, advance environmental sustainability, promote safety and establish equity.

Bird was the first e-scooter to launch in the county in 2018 — prompting Arlington to figure out how to regulate two-wheeled electric transportation. Since then, it helped pilot e-scooters in Arlington and survived the whittling down of permitted providers in 2020. In 2021, Arlington was one of the first cities in the region to get a new model of its scooter.

Since 2018, nearly a million miles have been traveled on Bird e-scooters in the county, Bird says. Based on a study calculating the economic impact of the vehicles to small businesses, Bird estimated there was $750,000 in additional spending in 2021 in Arlington.