If you walk down Interlake Avenue, just north of 36th Street, there’s a good chance you’ll see a hive of bright green, two-wheeled activity. That’s because the bicycle share company, LimeBike, has made this Wallingford warehouse its operational hub in Seattle. I recently spoke to Gabriel Scheer, who is in charge of LimeBike’s strategic development in Seattle, to ask him why the company chose Wallingford for its main facility in Seattle. Turns out it has less to do with our proximity to the Burke-Gilman Trail (which is a nice side benefit) than it does with how hard it is to find centrally-located warehouse space in Seattle these days. The building on Interlake happened to fit LimeBike’s needs.
LimeBike’s operational hub, which employees around 30 people, is used primarily for the maintenance and redistribution of its fleet, which is currently around 3,000 bikes (a number which could increase to 4,000 sometime soon). While most maintenance is done in the field, bikes with major mechanical issues or that need to be parted-out, come to the Wallingford site. Redistribution is done in primarily two ways: pre-balancing, such as making sure there are bikes available at light rail stations and major events, and re-balancing, which mostly means moving bikes from the bottom of the hills to the top (“Almost no one rides a LimeBike up Queen Anne,” says Gabriel).
Theft of Lime bikes hasn’t been a big problem. Gabriel says that occasionally someone will break the locking mechanism on a bike’s back wheel and steal a bike. Or sometimes a rider will accidentally forget to lock a bike as they’re hurrying to catch a Link train, and someone else will come along and take the bike for a joy ride. But these instances are rare, and since the bikes are GPS-equipped, they are almost always recovered (though sometimes in a tree, on the Troll, or underwater in Lake Union).
Ridership and “Litter”
LimeBike’s ridership thus far has exceeded that of Pronto, Seattle’s failed station-based bike share system. LimeBike averaged 5 to 6 rides per day per bike over the summer. That number has dropped to around 2 as the days have gotten shorter, but even that smaller number exceeds the busiest of days for Pronto. Gabriel attributes LimeBike’s solid ridership numbers to the “habit” that is forming for commuters, who are now using bike share regularly to complete that “last mile” to their workplace or their home. And he expects that habit to continue for many riders even through the winter months, except during mini-monsoons like we experienced toward the end of November this year.
A complaint I have heard both from people I like and some whom I do not is that the accumulation of green, orange (Spin), and yellow (ofo) bikes on planting strips, in parking lots, and alongside the Burke-Gilman Trail is beginning to seem like “litter.” Gabriel’s response to this complaint was nearly identical to what I’ve been saying to my friends and foes alike: 100 years ago seeing an automobile parked on the street was not normal (“Hey, your car is blocking my horse!” quipped Gabriel), but now we don’t think twice about it. Gabriel feels that a “paradigm shift” is needed in the way we view bicycles, and as we build out parking, lanes, and other infrastructure for bikes, urban biking will be normalized and seeing a bright green (or orange or yellow) bike parked next to a sidewalk will seem no more unusual than having a stranger’s Prius parked in front of your house. This is certainly the case in Amsterdam, where bikes rule the streets and are parked absolutely everywhere.
The Future of Bike-Share in Seattle
With the successful launch of stationless bike-share, I asked Gabriel what he thinks the future of LimeBike in particular and bike-share in general in Seattle is. His hope can be summed up in a single word: expansion. He and I agree that one of the great failures of Pronto was the unwillingness and inability to expand the network much beyond downtown, Capitol Hill and the U-District, never getting into bike-centric neighborhoods like Fremont and Ballard. Gabriel believes the ideal bike-share network in Seattle would have 20,000 to 30,000 bikes, far above the combined number of Lime, Spin and ofo bikes that are currently on the streets.
Aside from the potential outrage from a segment of the city which views these bikes as public nuisance, another roadblock to expansion 
could be capital. Bikes are expensive to build and maintain, and one bike-share company that had its eyes on Seattle, Bluegogo, has gone bankrupt. I asked Gabriel if he thinks that bike-share will be a “winner take all” operation in Seattle, or if three (or more) bike-share companies can co-exist. He replied that the city and their permitting process will have something to do with that. In fact, this month marks the end of the city’s “pilot program,” after which SDOT will analyze the bike-share data collected over the past six months and recommend what a permanent program will look like.
Undoubtedly for every voice like Gabriel’s or mine who hopes for expansion, there will be others wishing for bike-share’s demise. But traffic in Seattle is terrible now, and it’s getting worse. Buses are over-crowded now, and they’ll be more crowded tomorrow. We need more transportation options, not fewer. It’s time to shift our thinking into a different gear, where a random bike parked on your corner is not considered litter or an eyesore or a nuisance, but is a step toward a less car-centric culture. Starting in Wallingford.
Enjoyed the piece Doug.
Thanks!
Bluegogo went bust because there were more than two dozen dockless bikeshare companies in China, often with more than a dozen competing in the same market. Bluegogo had a much smaller market share comparing to Ofo and Mobike, and there were already similar companies that closed operations.
It simply makes little sense to have too many companies in the same city. It’s better to have 2-3 companies putting a combined 50 bikes near Gasworks as opposed to 10 companies putting 10 each. One can find pictures of crazy bikeshare piles in China near major hubs, and Chinese cities have been updating regulations to clean them up.
These bikes are indeed great for the last mile, if not for hill climbing or long distance riding. From my personal experience, I like Limebike and Spin over Ofo, but really they are all OK for a short ride along Burke-Gilman to Fremont Market or lightrail station.
One thing that hopefully will not happen here: in many cities around the world, there are people who throw bikeshares into waters. It can be some stupid games of college students, or people who just hate bikes.
I love these shared bike programs!
I am curious how the helmet law is being enforced or what ideas people have about it.
This morning about 10 am I drove from Stone Way N & 45th and passed a fleet of 8 or so of these green bikes.. why so many in one spot?
These companies have been recording bike usage patterns and deploying bikes accordingly. Stone and 45th is not exactly a hot spot, but obviously people are more likely to ride downhill from there toward Lake Union as opposed to the other way around. The true hot spots are Seattle downtown, Ballard downtown, Fremont downtown, Gasworks, and U-district. You can often see bikes deployed by a large number at those places. Capital Hill, which was a major location for Pronto, does not have as many bikes other than around the lightrail station, because there are simply few people willing to ride these heavy 3-gear bikes up a hill.
Re: helmets… I always wear my helmet when riding my personal bike, but basically never do on a bikeshare. Simply because I don’t carry my helmet everywhere, just in case I’m gonna ride a bikeshare.
That said, my personal bike & bikeshare bikes are built differently, and fill different roles in my life. My personal bike has skinnier tires, a more aggressive riding position (leaning forward, instead of sitting upright), both of which make it more fast & efficient, but somewhat less stable. I use my personal bike for getting around town, but generally when going longer distances. I use a bikeshare for shorter trips, and I ride much more slowly, since the bike is heavy, and the top-end gear just isn’t that fast.
I personally believe that a helmet is unlikely to significantly help me if I’m hit by a car (those things are fast & heavy!), but would help me if I were to screw up & crash at relatively high speed without a car being involved.
Lime has several styles of bike. One is as good as they get, seven speeds and a seat that can take a six-foot tall rider. Most are not good if you’re over about five foot eight. As a taller guy, I’d appreciate if their app would distinguish between the size bikes, because nothing is more frustrating than walking a couple blocks only to find you can’t ride the bike you were hoping to take.
Agreed. I’m 5’9″ and the bikes with the green seat lever barely fit me. This is a known issue and LimeBike is working on it. First by rolling out the bikes with the longer seatposts (which I was told are kind of unstable) and then by rolling out a 3rd generation of bikes with long, stable seatposts (and better kickstands). But, yeah, it’s frustrating that they can’t be distinguished on the app. Hopefully the whole fleet will be retrofitted at some point.
Bike helmet law!
Bike helmets are smart, bike helmet laws are not. Seattle’s bike helmet law should be repealed.
Doug- Out of curiosity, what do you think of laws requiring adults to wear seat belts in cars? Opposed to that as well?
No.
Yes
I don’t think it’s quite the equivalent, and there are easy compromises. We can change the helmet law so helmets are not required if lanes are not shared by cars. I don’t see allowing tourists to ride these slow bikes along trails to be too risky without helmets. Commuters who ride along cars in streets obvious should still wear helmets.
People are writing these on streets ( shared by cars) sidewalks ( shared by walking people) and bike paths
And of course when some helmetless bicyclist cracks his head open after hitting a pothole or one of those stupid streetcar tracks, guess who the lawyers are going to come after…..
If we really cared about reducing head injuries, we’d have helmet laws for people driving & riding in cars.