ORDER-2019-34 : Amending Melrose Revised Ordinances to add Chapter 222, Article IV: Shared Mobility Vehicles

Transcript (~41 min @ 1:34:48)

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▶ 1:34:41 Francis X. Wright Jr.: us a motion for x to recommend acceptance of this statute all in favor aye aye it will be a recommendation of acceptance of this statute

▶ 1:34:58 Francis X. Wright Jr.: thank you gentlemen thank you returning to the regular order of business

▶ 1:35:05 Francis X. Wright Jr.: item two on our agenda is order number

▶ 1:35:15 Francis X. Wright Jr.: 2019-34 amending melrose revised ordinances to add chapter 222 article 4 shared mobility vehicles

▶ 1:35:32 Monica C. Medeiros: sponsored by alderman Medeiros thank you chairman wright and being that we're still under the suspension of rules i'm just going to move forward so we talked a little bit about this during the presentation of course but you know I had seen over the you know past year and a half or so sporadically we'd see lime bikes and you know I think possibly some other bikes here and there in the city and felt that this was something that we should be thinking about regulating and licensing and as we came upon you

▶ 1:36:11 Monica C. Medeiros: the beginning of november and i really started to get inundated with you know some of these these pictures of the bicycles you know coming in and blocking the sidewalks and that it really seemed to me that you know this is a use that is providing a service to our community it's a use that is probably only going to grow i would see that there are other communities like we heard about some of the scooters coming into boston and cambridge without an agreement in place and you know i just looked at it and i said you know how can we let one company in but not another company you know what's to stop many companies from coming in and it seems like it's a use that affects the use of our public roadways our public sidewalks and it's something that should be licensed we license taxi cabs we license you know livery service drivers like that for uber and lyft and that this should be something that that we should license as well so So that's where I looked to, and I looked kind of all across the country, both here in Massachusetts and as well as at ordinances from all across the country, places as far

▶ 1:37:46 Monica C. Medeiros: away as California, Santa Monica, Salt Lake City, Memphis, Tennessee, Savannah, Georgia, and you know some places as close as you know Salem and Arlington and here in Mass and so I tried you know my best to take some pieces of these different ordinances and place together something that I think would work for Melrose and you know my goal here is it's not really to it's certainly not to prohibit this use in the city it's just to provide some accountability in particular for when the bikes are not in use and you can see that I've used the term shared mobility vehicles this is a term that's used in many other parts of the country and it encompasses pretty much all wheeled vehicles and not automobiles specifically I want to you know point out that the very first line the very first definition is referring to other than automobile. So, you know, this should not in any way, shape, or form affect anything like Zipcar or any services like that. This is not meant to address that and should not address that. I've categorized these in particular into shared mobility vehicles, both motorized and non-motorized. And

▶ 1:39:16 Monica C. Medeiros: And in particular, out of the category of motorized, excluded electronic or e-assist technology. Because you'll see towards the end that I've moved to ban motorized shared utility vehicles. And I don't think that an e-bike really fits that category. We heard the definition. and from the representative from LimeBike earlier tonight, that that's just, it's not really a motorized use. But we do already have, and I just want to kind of make clear and point out in terms of motorized, we do already have Section 202-31F. We have a section in our ordinances about scooters, and it specifically bans scooters from being used on sidewalks so that's kind of already in in place in the city and I personally don't think that we are sort of ready to have a mass onslaught of you know motorized scooters especially when we already have ordinances that are pretty strict prohibiting them I think they're not and this idea of a sharing service would be something where it's unmanned there's no representative here this is people kind of come and go and and sell it provide a self-service access to the vehicles I so I personally don't think that adding motorized scooters right now is where we should be I think it would probably especially without somebody manning the station and And I think we just have a lot of scooters on the sidewalks and not necessarily in the road. I think there's some dangers with scooters. And so I did sort of seek to prohibit that kind of use in this ordinance, but yet leave it open to other, you know, and there's obviously with a motorized vehicle of any kind, there's also, you know, different emissions that come from this. So, you know, this is to encourage the use of non-motorized shared mobility vehicles, but yet provide some licensing.

▶ 1:41:39 Monica C. Medeiros: I took the definition of a sharing service. It's pretty, it's almost identical to that from Savannah, Georgia, for instance. And the main points here are this provides licensing. a lot of the process from the licensing is the same as our processes in other parts of our city

▶ 1:42:10 Monica C. Medeiros: of Melrose ordinances and I'm going with a this would limit the not the number of shared sharing services but the number of actual vehicles on the street so I had in my research I had found that in some areas you know there just be a glut of vehicles on the street and sort of creating mostly in researching this I found you know two problems which are the same ones that I think many of us might hear as as aldermen that in some cases you could get a glut of vehicles bicycles you know on the street and sort of you know making a mess seeming on it seemingly unattended where they shouldn't be and kind of this other aspect of the bicycles being where they shouldn't be blocking sidewalks and creating some kind of impediment so you know in this ordinance I have limited the number of vehicles that a sharing service that we can license in total in the city so perhaps we could have more than one sharing service operate but no more than 60 non motorized shared mobility vehicles and you know I think that number could be something that we might want to adjust I'll come back to that in a minute but I sought to limit the number of vehicles and as well and I think probably one of the most important things here is to have the city create designated station areas in our more urban districts so for instance you know right now the bicycles can be pretty much anywhere downtown I think that we could working with the Planning Department and have them to designate areas you know I think it would be very reasonable that we could find a place you know somewhere in the middle of downtown maybe near Mexico Lindo another maybe downtown near closer to Papagino's one closer to City Hall where you know people know who use this app they log in and they can find a vehicle a bicycle that's nearby and I think they could walk you know in the in the busy areas downtown I think they could easily walk one block and pick up a bicycle and without any hindrance and you know so the idea of 60 is a number that you know I kind of looked at this and said okay we've got you know seven wards and if each ward got you know five bicycles and maybe you want 15 downtown and you know maybe we'd have a little more in some of these hot spots like the train stations or the areas near the towers Plaza by Whole Foods you know in some of these other areas you'd have maybe the common you know you'd have areas designated where people where bicycles would be now

▶ 1:45:17 Monica C. Medeiros: that would allow the user to still go out take the bike and leave the bike at their house and should they not pick the bike back up again the user wouldn't be expected to go you know bring the bat the bicycle back to the designated station area but if the user finishes with the bicycle and leaves it there unattended and nobody else uses it for 72 hours then it would expect that the the company the sharing service would then come back and have to move that bike to one of the designated station areas you know what they're calling rebalancing so I thought 72 hours was a reasonable amount of time so that if people were say using the bicycle to get to and from work and you know if they didn't use it you know beyond a three-day weekend that they probably weren't going to continue using it and it should be moved back to a station area you know to do this in order to find an area and a place I think it was Benjamin Franklin said you know a place for everything and everything in its place and I see you know Boston has the blue bikes and those are docked bikes this technology is great that you don't need to have a dock in order for it to work with line bike but we may consider a docked biking service in the future but I in being in downtown Boston and seeing how they've managed to have all the bicycles you know lots of them corralled in one location some of them in very visible locations and some of them a little bit tucked away but they're all very neat there's an obvious place where they belong where you know users can pick them up and take them they're not just all over the the street and i think that this is something that you know we should hope to do here um in Melrose so the the ordinance itself is licensing and it's meant to be an ordinance so it's hopefully something that would have some staying power I try to keep it as much as possible just to kind of cover the the basic the things

▶ 1:47:41 Monica C. Medeiros: we really want to make sure we cover like for instance in the snow that the bikes or the snow emergency or a weather emergency that the bikes are off the street now the particulars of how they get there we can and the ordinance allows for additional regulations to be promulgated and this is very much similar to say that scooter ordinance which I mentioned earlier where the ordinance itself allows the police to promulgate additional regulations to enforce it's similar to the dog park ordinances that we have that allow the Park Commission to you know dig in and create more specific regulations but the ordinance itself you know I just said okay get the get the bikes off the

▶ 1:48:37 Monica C. Medeiros: street in the snow it's here to that they must hold the city harmless have designated station areas it talks about some certain areas again that are very much specifically prohibited for parking, including blocking a sidewalk, a crosswalk, or a roadway, and that it should never block a fire hydrant, handicap parking space, a ramp, nor a bus or a taxi stand. And this allows for the police or our parking enforcement officers to assess fines directly to the company. And so this is a little different. This is a different kind of use um you know they the company the shared sharing service is the one who is the owner of these vehicles and ultimately the ones that are responsible and i think if we found that you know in their in their duties you know if a police officer finds that you know this bike is you know flat out across the the walkway downtown that police officer can write a ticket to the company and that the company would agree to that in the beginning it calls for a licensing fee of $300 annually it's just not you know a tremendous amount of money but I think that is something that the fee would be something that you know there is with any license there's some cost of administration and I think that that's a reasonable cost I didn't make that higher because I don't think we want to you know fee I don't think we want to discourage this use but I think we do want to encourage responsibility so the licensing fee itself is not that high I don't think is that prohibitive but if If the company is in violations and not taking care of their property with the bicycles or other shared vehicles, that we should have some accountability, and then they would be fined, or the vehicle's impounded, and there would be costs associated with that, which would be punitive, I think. so again it's not to stop them from operating it's really to encourage them to take responsibility and to provide some kind of accountability we as the board of aldermen were i think we were really lucky today to have line bike here but throughout this process of this um the memorandum of understanding the state would work you know i i don't think the board of aldermen was involved in that process at all i think we all have a lot to offer and i don't think the public was really involved in that process and by creating a license that would mean that any potential sharing service operator would have to come before the board of aldermen we'd be able to ask them all the questions and decide whether or not to grant a license And if we found that they weren't being responsive, if they weren't answering complaints, if they did leave the, you know, if they were continually leaving the vehicles blocking the sidewalk, for instance, we have a mechanism to bring them back in and have a conversation about this. We, in my experience of, you know, more than a decade on this board, we've only done that with licensees, I think maybe twice. But it's important to have that authority, I think, and I think that's the authority of this board. So I really, I want to thank all of you for listening to that. And in particular, I want to thank the Bicycle and Pedestrian Committee. I've reached out to them and almost immediately they allowed me to come in and and speak to them You know that was back actually in in November. And of course, that's when I had submitted I think they saw you in in December early December, but the way our Our process works this is actually the first time that this has been you know before all of us to to discuss and discuss any potential amendments or actions so thank you for for sharing all that and I hopefully I covered the basics and I hope that we

▶ 1:53:27 Jennifer L. Lemmerman: have passage so thank you thank you for bringing this before us it's thinking proactively about this issue it's obviously a very well researched and thought-out order I will say that at the beginning of this pilot program I was certainly one of the people who was going down Main Street every day I ride from one end of the city to the other both to and from on the way to the tee and just seeing these bikes everywhere and wondering kind of where they came from and you know pointing out areas of concern I will say that since that time I have seen and not just because right now is winter I recognize that that also means fewer bikes, but even in the fall and when the weather was still good saw vast improvements In the number of bicycles that were in the city became seemingly more appropriate You know, you weren't seeing these massive groups of them Taking up the entire sidewalk. I do feel that the users in the city have sort of made it over the learning curve in terms of how they should be positioned I used to you know would walk my daughter with my with her stroller and would have to kind of go up on grass to get around them I have not had to do that in a very long time I think that as the program has gone on these issues have corrected themselves you know whether by lime bike learning our community better or by our community learning line bike better issues have have at least in my experience resolved themselves in a lot of ways i i would ask through the chair to alderman medeiros if an assessment has been done of how much this would cost to implement and to maintain in terms of the licensing the administrative cost of the staffing that that would require and the

▶ 1:55:22 Monica C. Medeiros: enforcement thank you thank you alderman president lemmerman no this is the initial part of this and again I found this to be similar for instance we you

▶ 1:55:48 Monica C. Medeiros: know we license our alcohol licenses and I think the cost for those licenses annually or something like three hundred and fifty dollars so I took an extrapolation that that would be a similar kind of a similar kind of you

▶ 1:56:06 Monica C. Medeiros: know it cost for administration of the license you know I think it would be

▶ 1:56:16 Monica C. Medeiros: similar to you know some of our other licenses for say you know one one

▶ 1:56:23 Monica C. Medeiros: taxicab license I think is a hundred dollar fee so you know I think we're somewhere in between there in terms of what we're what we're providing I don't anticipate that this would be something that the you know if everything is moving along swimmingly I don't think that the police would be writing tickets and you know there's certainly but if they did there would be a fine associated with that ticket so there would be some you know recouping of the

▶ 1:57:04 Jennifer L. Lemmerman: cost of that enforcement thank you very much I think it seems to me that a lot of the issues that are identified in this order really valid issues that we're seeing are things that it's actually in the interest of the business

▶ 1:57:20 Speaker 5: to correct anyway so you know moving them back within a certain period of time not having too many in the city what to do when there's snow those are

▶ 1:57:30 Jennifer L. Lemmerman: things that it's in the interest of line bike to to correct those issues and it seems to me that they have been the liability issues also covered we learned earlier through our contract I do think the staging area is an interesting idea because we have seen it these are kind of bunched up in some places that you know maybe there's not as much room but the line bike representative mentioned that that is something that's helpful to them too and that they like to work with cities to identify those places and I actually think it could be interesting you know we have miss Gaffey here just put in a plug that that would be something I would encourage the city to maybe talk to them about if we can identify not that they have to be exclusively there but there's some places that would be helpful to both the public and and line bike if we had some and I can think of a few where there's where they're set up by the by the company that that sort of served that purpose so I think given all that for me it's in that fact that this is a pilot and we're seeing these issues being worked out and the potential cost I'm certainly not against you know putting our resources our capacity behind things that are you know needed in order to make a service run well and to make things safe but I think that there a lot of this is redundant with what the the company is already putting in place and what the city has requested of them I think if I appreciate Alderman Lipper Garabedian's request that we see the documents I think when we see those the work the work agreements they'll probably be similar to a lot of these issues so I think it's it's premature to put in order on in an ordinance a lot of these issues while it's in the pilot stage I would definitely ask miss Gaffey to keep us informed as the discussions are going forward of whether it's another pilot that gets extended whether it's a more permanent agreement before those things are implemented in the city to keep us informed of that so that we can have discussions about whether some of these requirements are needed to be put on the books i think that would be important but i think for right now it's it's premature to create law around this at the pilot stage thank you thank you alderman the other alderman

▶ 1:59:51 Michael P. Zwirko: elements workout uh thank you mr chairman um so i i'll echo some of the concerns raised by president lemmerman um and i also wanted to say thank you to alderman medeiros for bringing this forward and also initially bringing this before the bike ped committee to get some feedback so certainly you know forward-thinking is always appreciated but I do think that right now we were absent data and with absent data I think that any any regulatory effort is maybe have the right intentions but it might ultimately lead for a failure with enforcement as well as hindering the business and I know that this is one of those innovation economy sectors and they need to be very dynamic and they use a lot of data to be more agile and how they're providing the services to their customers so I think you know it doesn't behoove them because they at the end of the day they do want to make a profit to have 15 bikes in an area that aren't being used they're gonna be very reactionary when they're looking at the data and they're gonna find out where they need to put them and I also want to stress the importance of the difference between a dockless system and a docked system those docking systems the blue bikes that have been referenced in Boston I do work in downtown Boston that is a completely different business model and there are benefits to both models but I think that the reason the dockless system is here in Melrose is because the dockless system works here and a docking system won't I'm not in this industry but I think that there's a reason why there's a particular market for those to varying types of business models I will also add that the docks themselves you know the number one thing I hear about I'm sure we all do has to do with cars whether it's parking traffic or speeding that takes up probably 70% of all the comments that I hear from the residents and if we're going to temper an alternative mode of transportation that hopes to alleviate those concerns I'm very hesitant to do so especially with the absence of data as I mentioned earlier i think any way we can decrease traffic decrease speeding increase safety you know i'm all for especially in a community that's as dense as melrose is my concern is is that this is a heavy hand coming into like i said an innovative product that we just really don't know what the market will ultimately bear and i'm very hesitant to push the hand on the scale here when we don't have that information you know we've heard earlier in the presentation in the order that alderman Mortimer filed that we've received very little to no complaints and I think there's a difference between formal complaints and social media complaints or even complaints that we get through email and we need to kind of temper what we're hearing and what we're seeing because I think there just may be a lot of conjecture as to what actually the program is for and I know earlier when I asked miss Gaffey from the Planning department about the the lag time in the signing of the MOU as well as the the begin of this program she said there was a lot of work that was involved there's a lot of back and forth between negotiations and and what the city ultimately thought that they could bear and what was gonna work so you know we need to allow not only our department heads but our employees to have the liberty and independence of knowing what is gonna work well for the community and furthermore I think they're kind of waiting for the data I think the MAPC though this is a regional effort it's something that's brought in not just Melrose but other surrounding towns and I think that they want to be smart as to how not only us but others are going to react to this I think that there is a knee-jerk reaction when these bikes are either knocked over or placed right in front of a crosswalk but to all president Lemmerman points I think that over time the reaction has has improved and and I'm actually looking forward to how it will be this spring but I think you know overall I take what the comments that were written by the bike ped committee these are experts in this field this is something that this committee is made up of not only transit oriented individuals but you know civic and civil engineers so I think that their comments that you know we might be moving a little too fast here without the proper data is right I think we need to understand the different business models that are at play here and what would work I do like the idea of a licensing fee I think that that's something that that will allow for oversight and it's also a cudgel that we could use if we need to as Alderman Medeiros raised but I think that we need to for lack of a better term slow our role and see what comes of this i just i don't i don't want to be reactionary when maybe we don't need to be and i'm just very hesitant of creating a burden of enforcement on us as well as regulation and just a big government coming into an innovation economy and and spoiling it because i do like the product i'm a user of the product i think there's a benefit to the product in this community and i think we can improve the product so thank you mr chairman thank you all the men

▶ 2:05:12 Francis X. Wright Jr.: Any further comments? Alderman Lipper-Garabedian.

▶ 2:05:13 Kate Lipper-Garabedian: Sure. I'm not a member of this committee, but I just did want to briefly speak to this order and thank Alderman Medeiros for presenting this draft. I thought it had a lot of good points. I do appreciate the points of President Lemmerman and Alderman Zwirko. I would encourage us to use this as a starting point as we get more data from the city departments because i think there is a careful balance between being reactionary but also being proactive and having some expectations in place and if after we get more data and have a chance to learn from other communities we determine that it's incumbent on our body to set some expectations and a framework I'd rather do that before a lot of problems start popping up so for example on the concept that you've raised tonight with respect to motorized vehicles we don't currently have those in our city but we popping up in others nearby and creating a bit of havoc so just last week the City Council of Boston had on its agenda Marty mayor Walsh's proposed ordinance on the very similar to your proposed ordinance so I don't think it's untimely for you to be suggesting that we consider this and certainly that's a worth us all taking a look at and maybe seeing how colleagues and other nearby metropolitan communities are addressing this I think we didn't hear enough about banning motorized vehicles from our city department or others to for me to have a strong feeling about that I did do some research on a pilot that was done in Portland Oregon for 120 days they're doing a second year of pilots they found that 34% of residents who used a scooter did so in lieu of taking a car which is pretty compelling to me given what we're hearing about traffic and what we're all experiencing day to day I think also bikes and probably scooters as well have a positive impact on climate issues that we're also trying to affect here and certainly providing transportation options for folks around Melrose something I'm certainly in favor of particularly as we work with them bike that community the recent report that you all did on possible bike lanes was quite helpful and that's something that hopefully as we implement our complete streets grant for a north to south bike lane we can sort of use that for some of the bikes as well as perhaps someday motorized vehicles and alderman Medeiros you mentioned the possibility of docks that's also something I don't know that we have enough information about yet to think about whether that works for our context but I do recall in the north-south bike report that the bike the pedestrian and bike committee put forward they do have a really lovely rendering of a docking station in front of Mexico Lindo that's quite visibly appealing and I can see how having a combination could be good for us and so far as in some of these dense locations as you've noted that might be a really nice option for people and including me as we're having some some mixed-use development happening right now with a number of new residential departments or condominiums going in and our couple of blocks right here downtown so I think I would I would just appreciate that you've brought this forward I do think that these are issues that not only our city should be thinking about but clearly other cities are as well and I would just echo my colleagues sentiments that it would be really great for the city department to keep us updated on this pilot as we enter the spring and also any future pilots, including if there was some exploration of scooters. I think that would be really incumbent on sort of vetting that with the public and thinking that through because that's a technology that's quite different from bikes which many people already use their personal bikes for that. So thank you for your time. I know I'm not a member of this committee But I think this is a really interesting and important topic for us to continue to talk about.

▶ 2:09:26 Francis X. Wright Jr.: Thank you, Alderman. Any other comments or questions?

▶ 2:09:30 Robert A. Boisselle: Alain Boisel. Question on Section 22232, Paragraph G. The mayor, with approval of the Traffic Commission, may promulgate additional regulations governing operations of the non-motorized shared mobility vehicles within the city of Melrose. could you flush that out a little bit what is the responsibility of the traffic commission is this going to be moved to the traffic commission once it's

▶ 2:10:00 Monica C. Medeiros: approved so thank you through the chair so my thoughts on there this are that

▶ 2:10:06 Monica C. Medeiros: again that this ordinance would cover sort of the basics but you know you see if you see on the city website the details that that we have up for the agreement and the rules of operation for bicycles and pedestrians they are you know more detailed and in some cases they are more restrictive than you know I would say much more restrictive and in some ways than what I've outlined here in the ordinance and the idea is that you know for instance that miss you know Ms. Gaffey has in place that if I'll take the snow as an example, right? So my ordinance just says if the proposed ordinance says that if there's a snow or weather emergency that the bicycle should be removed from the street, they have in place right now through the memorandum of understanding and in the rules that if there's a forecast that we're going to get three inches of snow or more that the company needs to remove the bicycles i say so long as they're off the street that's good um i i would be rules like that that i would expect that could be the additional rules and regulations promulgated by the traffic commission and things that could be more flexible and change over time there's some communities that have completely prohibited use over the winter for instance which may be the traffic Commission might say it's this is just too messy during January and February that we don't want these on the street at that time and maybe they they would um do so but i i had hoped to see some um some flexibility that you know the traffic commission

▶ 2:12:08 Monica C. Medeiros: meets quarterly um in some public forum not just the mayor making regulations without any impact or any input from the public but some public forum and i think you know as far as traffic goes and use of the roadways i think the traffic commission is the best place for those kinds of things to happen but that's that's what i that's the kind of thing that i would expect that the traffic commission might make you know rules and regulations about um that might be more restrictive than what is in the ordinance um okay thank you thank you mr chair

▶ 2:12:45 Francis X. Wright Jr.: Thank you, Alderman. Any other comments or questions? We have a motion before us.

▶ 2:13:00 Michael P. Zwirko: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I just move to add the correspondence that we've received with respect to this order and attach them to said order.

▶ 2:13:08 Francis X. Wright Jr.: Alderman Zwirko moves to add the comments that we have received to the order itself.

▶ 2:13:16 Francis X. Wright Jr.: Second. Seconded by Alderman Medeiros. All in favor? Aye.

▶ 2:13:25 Francis X. Wright Jr.: Alderman Medeiros.

▶ 2:13:26 Monica C. Medeiros: you know I'd like to see this go forward of course I do think that in the idea

▶ 2:13:37 Monica C. Medeiros: was to have some you know have something in place for the busy time of our season now obviously we have a memorandum and statement of work that for a pilot

▶ 2:13:51 Monica C. Medeiros: program set to end in May it's I think it's kind of a an odd you know I think it's kind of a tough time to start and end a program I had chosen you know the expiration date to be the last day of February or the idea of the first day of March to be you know the implementation of this program largely because largely because of the weather here you know it by the time April 1st rolls around you know people you know the snow sometimes is there in March but by April 1st usually people might want to be out and about and using these bicycles I think you know changing course and in May is kind of a tough time to to do this we certainly could look at this ordinance and have it taking place you know to

▶ 2:14:41 Monica C. Medeiros: begin a year from now or to begin in May I didn't want something to be a calendar year because often the Board of Aldermen doesn't meet in the month of December and you know in the very beginning of January so if we had something starting on january 1st i thought that you know just would lead to trouble um i'd you know i think

▶ 2:15:03 Monica C. Medeiros: i think i get the feeling from those who've spoken that they'd like to to maybe get some

▶ 2:15:13 Monica C. Medeiros: more information on this and i'm not sure you know the best way to do that is to hold this in committee and wait um or if it's something to bring back up after the um i'm gonna actually

▶ 2:15:29 Francis X. Wright Jr.: move to to hold this in committee second move to hold this in committee seconded by alderman Zwirko all in favor aye aye this matter will be held in committee a motion to adjourn so moved