When the eScooter tsunami crashed on the beaches of Santa Monica and Venice last year it seemed like “The Scooter Keepers” were mostly freelancers, people who surfed the bike trail between Santa Monica and Venice collecting scooters for vendors like Lime, Bird, and Spin, and recharging them for $5 a scooter. Today, in addition to those early scooter labels, millennial transportation darlings Uber and Lyft have also joined the game. While the early players still use freelancers, Uber & Lyft run full-time operations with employees driving vans around to collect scooters in need of charging or other service.
On Thursday evening, Feb. 23, 2019, “Scooter Keepers” as young as Lyft employee Michael Jones, 19, from Los Angeles, and as old as Lime freelancer Alex, 61, from Santa Monica, were patrolling the Venice Beach Boardwalk area and collecting eScooters in need of charging or repair. For an employee like Jones, it’s a full-time job with a shift from 3 pm – 11 pm. For a freelancer like Alex, it’s work when he feels like it and pay based on how many eScooters he takes home to charge. Lime pays Alex $5 for each eScooter he finds, takes home, charges, and returns to the street. Alex stopped collecting Bird eScooters when they lowered the pay from $5/eScooter to $3/eScooter.
Alex cruises the Venice Beach Boardwalk on a skateboard and uses a GPS-enabled mobile app to find Lime eScooters that need charging. Lyft employee Jones, and Uber employees Javaun Bruins, 31, from Inglewood, Calif., and Kegauna Brown, 23, from Compton, Calif., have big vans to drive around in and collect eScooters, but like Alex, they still have to hunt around with GPS apps. Jones’ app led him to a Lyft eScooter that he thought needed charging, but it turned out to be the wrong eScooter. Like a scavenger hunter, Jones had to search around the boardwalk for several minutes before he finally found the eScooter that needed charing.
When Alex started collecting Lime scooters in front of The Waterfront restaurant on the Venice Boardwalk, the manager came out and yelled at him that she needed the eScooters cleared from her restaurant. The eScooters may have brought the customers to The Waterfront, but now she seemed angry that the eScooters were there. Alex was moving eScooters which was helping to clear the front of her restaurant, but she yelled at him anyway. In spite of that, Alex loves his job. He knows that some eScooter companies like Uber and Lyft have full-time jobs, but he says that at his age he doesn’t want that kind of commitment. He likes the freedom of freelance collecting scooters for Lime when he chooses to do it.
Bruins said that the Uber eScooters have an average life of maybe 3 months before they’re no longer usable and must be committed to recycling or landfill. Jones’ estimate was longer, he noted that some of the Lime scooters they had when they launched here half a year ago are still in operation.
Javaun Bruins, 31, Inglewood – Uber
Kegauna Brown, 23, Compton – Uber
Michael Jones, 19, Los Angeles – Lyft
Alex, 61, Santa Monica – Lime
Uber employees Javaun Bruins, 31, from Inglewood, Calif., and Kegauna Brown, 23, from Compton, Calif., collect Uber eScooters in need of charging or repair on Thursday, Feb. 28, 2019 at the Venice Beach Boardwalk. Bruins and Brown use a mobile GPS-based app to track eScooters needing attention. They collect the scooters and take them back to Uber’s shop for charging, re-balancing, and repair. (Glenn Zucman/The Corsair)
Uber employee Javaun Bruins, 31, from Inglewood, Calif., in a van filled with eScooters he and Kegauna Brown, 23, from Compton, Calif., have collected in the Venice area on Thursday, Feb. 28, 2019. From here they take the eScooters back to Uber’s shop for charging, re-balancing, and repair. (Glenn Zucman/The Corsair)
Lyft employee Michael Jones, 19, from Los Angeles, Calif., takes a discharged Lyft eScooter from the Venice Beach Boardwalk to his van on Thursday, Feb. 28, 2019. From there he’ll take the eScooter back to the Lyft warehouse near the SMC Main Campus. At the Lyft warehouse about 2,000 eScooters are charged and repaired for use around Los Angeles. Jones has been working for Lyft since they started eScooters in this area in September 2018. (Glenn Zucman/The Corsair)
Lyft employee Michael Jones, 19, from Los Angeles, Calif., looking around the Venice Beach Boardwalk for an eScooter in need of charging on Thursday, Feb. 28, 2019. His mobile app led him to this eScooter, but this one turned out to be in working order, so Jones had to hunt around for several minutes looking for the eScooter that needed charging. Once found, Jones will take the eScooter back to the Lyft warehouse near the SMC Main Campus. At the Lyft warehouse about 2,000 eScooters are charged and repaired for use around Los Angeles. Jones has been working for Lyft since they started eScooters in this area in September 2018. (Glenn Zucman/The Corsair)
After some false starts, Lyft employee Michael Jones, 19, from Los Angeles, Calif., finally finds the eScooter in need of charging on Thursday, Feb. 28, 2019. From here Jones gets a 20-second eScooter ride back to his van where he will load it in with other Lyft eScooters to be charged or repaired. Once Jones has collected all the Lyft eScooters in the area, he will drive them to the Lyft warehouse near the SMC Main Campus. At the Lyft warehouse about 2,000 eScooters are charged and repaired for use around Los Angeles. Jones has been working for Lyft since they started eScooters in this area in September 2018. (Glenn Zucman/The Corsair)
Lyft employee Michael Jones, 19, from Los Angeles, Calif., with eScooters he has collected in the Venice Beach area on the evening of Thursday, Feb. 28, 2019. Once Jones has collected all the Lyft eScooters in the area, he will drive them to the Lyft warehouse near the SMC Main Campus. At the Lyft warehouse about 2,000 eScooters are charged and repaired for use around Los Angeles. Jones has been working for Lyft since they started eScooters in this area in September 2018. (Glenn Zucman/The Corsair)
"Scooter Keeper" Alex, 61, from Santa Monica, Calif., with Lime eScooters he has collected in the Venice Beach area on the evening of Thursday, Feb. 28, 2019. Alex will take the eScooters home with him to charge them and then put them back out. Lime pays him $5 per scooter. Alex stopped collecting Bird eScooters when they dropped the pay from $5/scooter to $3/scooter. Alex knows that some companies like Uber and Lyft have full-time jobs collecting eScooters, but he doesn’t want that kind of constraint at his age. He enjoys the freedom of collecting eScooters when he chooses. (Glenn Zucman/The Corsair)