Before any companies are allowed to bring rentable electric scooters to the streets of Lawrence, the city’s Transportation Commission wants a pilot study to be conducted.

Two companies have already requested permission to bring scooter rental businesses to Lawrence, and the Transportation Commission voted during its meeting this week to create a subcommittee to develop a pilot program to test out scooters. Transportation Commission Chair Steve Evans told the Journal-World that the safety of the electric scooters, or “e-scooters,” would be a key concern for the subcommittee when recommending rules for the pilot study.

“What we don’t want to do is just throw 50 e-scooters on the streets and see what happens,” Evans said. “We need to know what does this pilot study look like, who is engaged in it and what will be the rules for the pilot study.”

Read more: LJWorld.com.

It’s not an announcement many would expect to see in 2019, but the Lawrence Public Library hopes the addition of a pay phone will help those who may need it.

On Monday, the library announced that it had installed a brand new pay phone within its walls to allow people to make calls whenever they need to. While the announcement received several “LOLs” and jokes on the library’s Facebook page, library director Brad Allen said the purpose of the phone is to fill a need that many people may not realize exists.

“Public libraries are in a place where we have to figure out how to anticipate new trends, and we also have to hang on a lot longer to trends that are fading away,” Allen said. “A lot of people who have the most barriers to access also don’t have the most modern, newest things. It’s important to not leave people behind.”

Read more: LJWorld.com.