While scooter startups are mostly regulated by cities, they have started to zip around Washington, D.C., in hopes of influencing any upcoming federal action on the country’s infrastructure.
Shared-scooter company Lime disclosed in a recent filing that it has hired a heavyweight lobbyist firm, Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld, for work on “policies supportive of electric bike and scooter sharing.”
Lime officials worked with Akin Gump to arrange meetings with Democratic and Republican lawmakers, said Emily Warren, senior director of policy and public affairs at Lime, which is a unit of Neutron Holdings Inc. and was recently valued at $1.1 billion.
The startup wants to be a “stronger voice” on infrastructure topics and help push for bike lanes and other improvements to streets, she said. Bike lanes that scooters can use are increasingly part of local projects, as planners become less focused on cars CARZ, -1.25% .
“We want to be part of the conversation on how a federal bill could accommodate this changing reality,” Warren told MarketWatch.
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Infrastructure spending looks like an area that could get bipartisan support in upcoming months. Several infrastructure-related moves are rated as “possible” by lobbyists at Hogan Lovells, in their recent report on what Washington is likely to deliver after last week’s midterm elections that resulted in a divided Congress.
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Congress could allocate significant federal funding for projects of national importance, and lawmakers may aim to fund infrastructure IGF, +0.29% improvements through an increased gasoline tax, Hogan Lovells reckons. On the other hand, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has poured cold water on some hopes on that front, with the Kentucky Republican saying Wednesday that the GOP is “not interested in a $900 billion stimulus.”
Cities’ efforts to regulate scooter startups such as Lime and Bird Rides Inc. have included San Francisco’s move in August to deny permits to 10 companies, while awarding them just to two firms. That action was viewed as a rebuke to the startups’ strategy to drop their dockless electric scooters on streets earlier this year before rules could established.
In Denver, officials ordered companies to remove their scooters from streets in June. The Mile High City then launched a one-year pilot program with each provider capped at 350 scooters, according to a Denver Post report.
