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City, university impound company’s scooters

Blue Duck Scooters
Friday, September 28, 2018

A San Antonio-based e-scooter company tried to launch its services in San Marcos last week, but the city and Texas State University impounded the scooters and returned them to the company.

Blue Duck Scooters offers app-based rental of electric scooters. The company dropped off 50 scooters in San Marcos the morning of Sept. 21, according to Casey J. Whittington, a spokesman for the company, but university authorities impounded the scooters left on campus and city staff ordered Blue Duck to pick up the scooters left in town off campus.

“I checked yesterday with my staff,” said Steven Herrera, director of transportation services at Texas State, in an email Tuesday. “They reported 20 scooters had been dropped off on campus Friday and were collected, as they were never coordinated or authorized to be on campus. Our staff did get in contact with the Blue Duck representatives to coordinate the collection of their scooters from campus.”

City spokesman Trey Hatt said the city had received no prior notice from Blue Duck about the dropoff and did not have an agreement with Blue Duck for use of the scooters. 

“Blue Duck was notified to pick up all scooters that had been dropped off by end of day Friday and they complied,” Hatt said. 

Whittington confirmed that the scooters were returned to Blue Duck.

“We reached out to all parties the morning of the launch to let them know and gave them our personal cell phones to contact should anything need to be corrected, and no one called us,” Whittington said. “We would like to reach an agreement with the city and the University; however efforts to contact both parties have not been returned.”

Whittington claimed that the university was impounding the scooters because of the contract the university and city have with bike-sharing company Veoride. However, university officials said the Veoride contract is only for bicycles. Moreover, Hatt said scooters will be on an upcoming city council agenda.

“City council will be discussing rentable scooters and whether this is something they want to offer within the community at their Oct. 16 meeting,” Hatt said.

Texas State University spokesman Jayme Blaschke said the university and city are working together closely on transportation offerings, such as bike-sharing and, potentially, electric scooters. 

In a press release sent out Sept. 21, Blue Duck called the removal of the scooters from campus illegal, though university officials say the scooters were never authorized to be on campus.

“Within just several hours, Blue Duck saw a significant increase in e-scooter usage at the Texas State University campus, but the e-scooters were quickly and illegally removed by university officials. Blue Duck is disappointed that its e-scooters were removed as one of the company’s core missions is to provide alternative modes of transportation for students seeking convenient ways to navigate large university campuses.”

In an interview with San Antonio’s Rivard Report, Blue Duck President Eric Bell is quoted as saying he does not feel it is “productive” to consult with city officials before launching its services.

San Marcos Record

(512) 392-2458
P.O. Box 1109, San Marcos, TX 78666