What’s up with all the green bikes?
It’s been the buzz around town ever since dozens of lime-colored bicycles mysteriously popped up on street corners in San Pedro, Wilmington and Watts on Nov. 7.
From curiosity to the usual instant thumbs-up and thumbs-down reviews, social media pages have lit up with comments about the phone-app connected smart bikes that overnight have become ubiquitous in the Harbor Area.
Some have declared the bikes an eyesore that already are ending up in all the wrong places. Others say they’re handy, inexpensive, easy and fun to use for short hops around town.
Others say they’re handy, inexpensive and fun to use for short hops around town.
“I counted 38 bikes on my way to work … on Gaffey, Pacific and in and around downtown San Pedro,” posted Ann Lee Carpenter on Facebook. “All 38 were upright, neatly parked and ready to ride. I’ll be using one shortly to commute from one of our San Pedro offices to the other at AltaSea.”
Seeing the bikes all around town, she said, “makes me smile.”
Welcome to what could become a technological revolution sweeping cities and transportation.
The green-and-yellow “smart” bikes are the latest in what’s become a nationwide bike share push, with entrepreneurs hopping onto the growing bike-share craze. The increase in private-sector operators also promises to save cities millions of dollars as the new dockless, free-standing bikes do away with the need for building costly stations and infrastructure used in other city-sponsored bike share programs.
This month, 250 of the bikes produced by LimeBike, a San Mateo-based company that launched only this year, were dropped off in Watts, Wilmington and San Pedro as part of a three-month pilot program worked out with Los Angeles City Councilman Joe Buscaino. The bikes are free floating and can be picked up or left without having to visit a dock or bike share station. They can be found quickly via the LimeBike phone app.
Hello, #LosAngeles! 🌞😎👋#limebikenation #yourrideanytime #socal #bikeshare #california #la #lalaland @JoeBuscaino https://t.co/Sx5Py5EOKw
— Lime (@limebike) November 6, 2017
What a fantastic ride tonight with the community here in #Watts! Thank you all so much for the warm #LosAngeles welcome 😀💚#limebikenation pic.twitter.com/yVlIwPkXt9
— Lime (@limebike) November 7, 2017
On Wednesday, Buscaino submitted a motion asking the city to move forward to solidify the three-month pilot program in his district.
“The city has been approached by several new dockless bike-sharing companies to operate in Los Angeles,” Buscaino’s motion reads. “These systems allow riders to use an application on their phone to find and unlock nearby bicycles and drop them off anywhere bikes are allowed. No docking stations or kiosks are required, which provides maximum flexibility for riders. … This new bike-share model will allow the city to explore new transportation options, particularly for first- and last-mile system challenges.”
Unlike the Los Angeles County’s Metropolitan Transportation Authority’s bike share program — which debuted with much fanfare on the San Pedro-Wilmington waterfront only two months ago — LimeBikes are cheaper to use ($1 versus $3.50 per half-hour) and offer hassle-free pickup and drop-off options.
“The beauty of the system is it’s dockless,” said Jack Song, who is in charge of marketing and partnerships for LimeBike.
What is dockless #bike sharing? For us, it's the next step in #sustainable, affordable #transportation.
What about you? #yourrideanytime pic.twitter.com/asliIKHiCR
— Lime (@limebike) October 14, 2017
By making the bikes “dockless,” Song said, they are more cost-effective and are virtually free for cities to use.
“None of the cities pay LimeBike a dime,” he said. “And that’s really piqued city leaders’ interest.”
By contrast, bringing the Metro bike share program to the LA Waterfront costs both the city and port close to $1 million.
The cost to expand the MTA program, which was already in place in downtown Los Angeles, into the waterfront was $824,280, split between the MTA and the port. Additional signage costs — $155,000 — were to be paid by the port, which also would pick up operational costs estimated at about $260,000 a year (with the MTA paying $140,000 a year to maintain the program).
The popularity of LimeBike has taken off, Song said, in cities such as Dallas, Seattle, Washington, D.C., and South Bend, Indiana. They are especially popular in college towns.
LimeBike is now valued at $255 million, not bad for a company that’s been around for less than a year.
Its bikes all have GPS, making them easily tracked and a deterrent to theft. The tracking devices will find bikes in living rooms or garages.
“We love it that our riders like our bikes so much that they bring them home, but we’d ask that they don’t,” said Andrew Savage of LimeBike.
What about vandalism? One San Pedro resident reported seeing one of the bikes without a seat or handlebars.
Song said fewer than 1 percent of their bikes have been hit with vandalism or theft so far. Locals are hired, according to LimeBike, to fix bikes that are damaged. And the parts, Song said, are customized to guard against resale.
“We know exactly where all the bikes are at all times, so if we see a bike dangling out where it’s not permitted to be deployed,” it can be retrieved, he said.
So far, the bikes appear to be popular.
Nearly 3,000 rides have been taken on the LimeBikes since they arrived in the 15th Council District two weeks ago, according to LimeBike stats.
