Reston Going to the Birds: E-Scooters Join Bikeshares As Most Likely Objects To Be Found During Future Lake Dredging

First, the red Capital Bikeshare stations descended upon our neighborhoods, glowing monoliths and solar panels and puny, pathetic bollards and all. Now, within a week of the county approving its "shared mobility device program," we've seen the first rentable scooters that weren't totally lost pop up in Reston -- in Reston Town Center, no less!

The first county franchisee, Bird, is beginning to distribute up to 300 scooters countywide (a second company, LINK, will start distributing scooters sometime this fall). 

At least 15 of Bird's battery-powered doohickeys have been set up in RTC, making this the second most embarrassing moment involving birds and our plastic fantastic fake downtown. Check out this helpful cellular telephone map:

With its mix of paths, transit, and pedestrian-friendly design, Reston's actually a decent place for these scooters, and we can't wait to effortlessly scoot from the Apple Store to the former site of the Macaroni Grill to pay our #respects some day in the not-so-distant future. (But we won't be going to Herndon -- that purple area on the map suggests that scooters remain verboten for our neighbors to the west.) But with the way they block sidewalks when they're not in use and encourage speedy zipping around pedestrians when they are, they're.... not exactly popular with everyone, as this fancy "supercut," as the kids haven't said in years, suggests.

 

Scooters and plentiful bodies of water? What could possibly go wrong, the end.