Electronic shareable scooters are all the rage now. Where I live in Portland, you see them everywhere, nicely organized in a row on the sidewalk, ostentatiously placed in improbable places and, sometimes, being thrown in the river. (Stay classy Portland.)
The purpose behind e-scooters is easily told: Short trips in urban areas. Need to get across downtown, but the bus isn’t going your way, and don’t want to mess with parking? Jump on an e-scooter. With no docks required, you just find one wherever you are, and drop one off wherever you are.
I’m a huge advocate for public transit, and so these private transportation companies don’t really do much for me. I don’t see these services as complementing transit service, I see them as cannibalizing them. And it’s all but guaranteed that their labor practices are punitive.
That said, I’ve been moderately interested in trying one of these things out.
However, the fundamentals of this service, like so many services made in the last few years consists of one phrase: “just use the app!”
Well, I don’t want to use the app.
I have a debit card, I have means, and I want to rent a scooter. I don’t want to ask permission from an app store.
The question is: can someone who wants to rent an e-scooter in this town do it without a smartphone?
Let’s see.
Three companies
There are, at the time of writing, three companies operating in Portland. Lime, Bolt, and Spin.
(And as an aside, would someone please tell me why they are all four letter words?)
Their services are, as far as I can tell, functionally identical. They all have an app, they are all dockless, and they are all a little demure about their pricing on their websites. (The PBOT site linked above says that typical pricing is $1 to unlock, and $0.15 per minute.)
But how can I rent one without a smartphone? I investigated each of these companies.
Lime
I started with Lime.
I found a service on their site called LimeAccess. This is an accessibility option for low-income people:
“To qualify for Lime Access, an individual simply needs to demonstrate eligibility or participation in any local, state or federally-run assistance program.”
It looks like Lime has made the mistake of equating being smartphone-free with low-income. This is an incorrect assumption, case in point for everyone reading this article.
I couldn’t find any other way to sign up for an account, so I did something I knew I’d regret: I called customer service.
I got a human without much delay (thankfully), however the human I got appeared to have not even have heard of LimeAccess. She just said, “um sorry, you can’t use our service. But you can get a family member to sign up for you.“
Thanks.
Next, I shot their customer service an email, asking for more clarification, wondering if I might get more information that way. I have yet to hear back, but when I do, you’ll be sure to hear about it.
Result: 👎
Bolt
Update: Apparently there are multiple scooter companies named Bolt? Apparently I chose the wrong one below. I feel quite silly. The real Portland-relevant Bolt scooter company didn’t provide any details on non-smartphone use on their website either, so I reached out to their customer service too.
Next up was Bolt.
Bolt appears to at least have not equated access with low-income. They even have an FAQ titled: Use Bolt without a Smartphone.
That last option worried me though. What does cash have to do with not using a smartphone?
But hey, paying for an e-scooter with cash would be great. I’d love to get a prepaid transit card while I’m at it. This could be cool!
So I signed up on my laptop, and was immediately given access to their mobile site.
The website seemed a bit broken, not showing any scooters anywhere, but let’s face it, the internet is broken, so I wasn’t all that surprised.
There were no instructions on how I would rent a scooter. No option to input a credit card or anything. Perhaps it’s easy? It’s hard to say.
Theoretically it should be possible to rent a scooter with Bolt. Maybe.
Result: ❓
Spin
Then I moved on to Spin.
Spin has a program called Spin Access. Ah hell, not another low-income program, I thought.
Well, partially.
“Spin is proud to offer Spin Access, which provides access to our scooters for people without smartphones, mobile location services, or credit cards. Spin Access also provides discounted fares for those who qualify.”
This was promising. It appeared to separate the low-income aspect from the “people without smartphones”. And hey, I have a credit card!
Spin allows you to sign up online for this service. I did just that.
The form I was directed to, however, clearly was expecting only low-income only people to apply. There were mandatory fields like “what discount are you applying for”? I even had to submit “proof” of low-income status. (I uploaded a text file saying that I was not low-income.)
That said, I submitted the application, and assuming it goes through, I think this one might be the most likely option for me. If nothing else, Spin was the only company to explicitly state how one could rent a scooter without a smartphone.
Result: ❓
Final thoughts
There was no scooter company in Portland that allowed for easy, seamless access without a smartphone.
But while that’s unfortunate, I’m less interested in a good experience, and more interested in whether it’s possible at all.
Based on my research, I would rank the companies as follows:
- 1st place: Spin (an application form and real instructions)
2nd place: Bolt(an FAQ entry and a mobile app, but the app was broken)- 3rd place: Lime (basically told me to kiss off)
But I’m not deterred. If I can get myself on a scooter without a smartphone, then hopefully I can pave the way for others to do the same more easily.
Stay tuned!
