Shared electric vehicle company Bird Canada gave a presentation regarding e-scooters in Strathmore on May 3, and Strathmore Town Council has a more clear timeline regarding when we might see them on our streets.

A report on the original motion to bring e-scooters to Strathmore will take place during the September 20 council meeting, as Town of Strathmore CAO Kevin Scoble explained there are several benefits to taking their time on this report since this would be a new service to the Town. Scoble brought up three main points regarding why waiting for the report would be the best way to go:

  1. "The vendors are now bringing e-bikes to the market as well, so it would seem most efficient to look at that and be current or perhaps even ahead of the game if there are any new offerings of that mode of transportation."
  2. "We've heard some lessons learned from other communities that may give us ways to see what this motion has written, take some learning from other communities that maybe weren't original options when e-scooters started coming into use."
  3. "We want to make sure we're following public procurement requirements, we don't want to infer directly or indirectly any particular affiliation with any particular vendor at this time to make sure we're respecting those procurement requirements."

Regarding the third point of public procurement, this refers to the Town's procurement policy which states "The Town of Strathmore is committed to the acquisition of goods, capital projects, and services at the best value while treating all vendors equitably."

Councillor Denise Peterson remains in support of bringing e-scooters to Strathmore, but expects it to be a lengthy process.

"I am very much in favour of this, I think the timing really hasn't changed, and understand that it'll be a work in progress that when administration brings this back it may not be all the information that we will eventually get, but it will be a beginning to address the process," she said.

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