Lime Scooters but not Lime Bikes return to South Lake Tahoe this summer

SOUTH LAKE TAHOE, Calif. - After two summers in South Lake Tahoe, Lime is not bringing back their green bikes to town this May and instead are concentrating on their popular electric scooters, the fastest growing segment of the San Franciso-based company.

In 2017, South Lake Tahoe was the very first town in California to offer the Lime bikes and won't be the only community to have the bicycle cut from the company's transportation lineup. Bikes have been pulled from St. Louis, Hartford. Tacoma, and parts of Ohio, and California cities South San Francisco, Burlingame, San Mateo, Foster City, Sunnyvale, Mountain View, El Cerrito, and Alameda

Lime also recently changed their name from LimeBike to better represent what they offer in the competitive transportation sharing industry. Seattle will be a test location this summer for LimePod, a car-sharing system that operates in the same manner as their bikes and scooters. Customers will use an app to find the closest car to use and it will be unlocked by the app.

South Lake Tahoe is now one of Lime's smallest markets and one of only two seasonal markets (the other being Zurich, Switzerland), though the micro-transit system is very popular with visitors and locals.

During the summer and early fall months of 2017 and 2018, there were 225,998 total trips made on Lime products, 171,942 of those on the scooter. There were 63,374 unique riders and 279,440 miles were traveled.

In 2018 the bikes were launched May 21 and the scooters followed on June 6. They ended on November 20 before the first major snow. Local jobs also came with the company with over 70 juicers (those that charge the scooters at night), eight mechanics and 25 operations specialists.

The price to unlock the scooter is $1 with a charge of 15 cents per minute used, and students with a .edu email get 50 percent off rides.

During Tuesday's City Council meeting, there was a discussion on both safety and how the City could tap into Lime's revenue in South Lake Tahoe to help recover costs of resources used, especially since Lime was just valued at $2.4 billion after just two years in business. Lime currently pays only for their business license fees, or $1.62 per $1000 of gross revenue.

Lime is now making their app available to riders who want to make a donation to the League to Save Lake Tahoe through a program they call Lime Hero. Council asked if they could perhaps add a few cents onto each charge that would go to City revenue.

Councilwoman Tami Wallace asked if Lime could gather the renter's zip code upon rental so they could see how many of the riders are local. Lime representative said many of the rentals were for getting to and from a bus stop. She also asked if they could prevent the scooters from entering Heavenly Village through a geo-fencing feature that could direct the scooter to stop, thus being safer around the heavy pedestrian use in that area.

Brick-and-mortar bicycle shops will no longer be competing with the Lime bikes, something that made Council and local business owner Becky Bell happy. She told Council the bikes impacted the local industry during the last two summers.

Safety and helmets are also a concern with the scooters, but a change to the law doesn't require users to have helmets when 18-or-older, though Lime is encouraging their use. Those under-18 and not wearing a helmet will be issued a "fix-it" ticket and would require the minor to attend a bicycle safety course within 120 days. Motorized scooters may operate within a Class IV bikeway as well as a Class II bikeway and on highways with speed limits up to 25 miles per hour. Class IV are separated bike lanes or “cycletracks” and we don’t have any of these in Tahoe. Class II are the lanes painted on the road, like Highway 50 and local jurisdictions may pass ordinances to allow motorized scooters on highways with speed limits up to 35 miles per hour. It is still illegal to operate a motorized scooter on a sidewalk.

New this summer will be scooter corrals in areas like Camp Richardson where users would have to deposit them in that area.

Council directed staff to work with Lime on their concerns including having helmets attached to all scooters so they could be used and users wouldn't have to search for a helmet location. They also want them to work together on possible revenues going forward, corrals and geo-fencing.