Juan Betancourt
The Bike Sharing Company Is On Track On To Have 5,000 Bikes On The Streets Of Dallas Before The End Of 2017 And Plans To Open A Dallas Facility Soon.
The race to win the hearts of bikes sharing enthusiasts in Dallas may have only started this year, but LimeBike is peddling as hard as it can to stay ahead of the pack.
The California-based bike sharing company announced last Thursday that it was officially adding 1,000 more bikes to it’s fleet of 1,500 in the Dallas area and expanding its service into Plano. The company also has plans to open a Dallas office that will help maintain its bikes in the area.
“With a surge of new bikes strategically positioned throughout the city, these numbers will only continue to climb, reinforcing Dallas’ commitment to healthier, more sustainable transportation alternatives,” the announcement reads.
LimeBike launched with 180 bikes in August and with its expansion is still on track to reach its goal of having 5,000 on the ground in the Dallas by the end of the year, as we reported on November 9.
Anthony Fleo, General Manager of LimeBike Dallas, says that new bikes are already being placed around Dallas and that the plan’s for the new facility will be announced soon.
“Moving around the city, picking up bicycles that are parked in ways they shouldn’t be … that’s part of what they’ll do … maintenance and repair,” Fleo says.
The decision to open the facility came from wanting to accommodate the company’s growing field team responsible for gathering and replacing bikes around town.
To help celebrate the expansion, LimeBike is offering riders five free rides until the end of November using a coupon code “THANKSDALLAS.”
Still the issue of bikes being scattered all around, as we reported a couple of weeks ago, won’t be touched by the City of Dallas until sometime next year, even if there will be a giant influx of bikes to the area soon.
The City of Dallas has allowed bike sharing companies to operate on their own, but Fleo says if the city does add some form of regulations to bike sharing, it would not affect the company.
“We’re already operating in a way that have seen other cities regulate,” Fleo says. “It wouldn’t change anything for us at all.”
Even if that means more bikes on the streets and potentially sometimes in the way, Fleo says the expansion is LimeBike’s response to the Dallas area’s positive reaction and use of its service.
“The number one reason for the expansion is the growing demand” Fleo says. “We’ve seen over 82,000 trips in Dallas in the first three months that we’ve been here, so a lot of people have taken pretty quickly to this idea and we want to make sure that we serve the growing demand.”