SPOKANE, Wash. — With the anticipation of winter coming to an end, Spokane residents can once again look forward to spotting lime green scooters scattered throughout the city.
The city plans to relaunch their WheelShare program operated by Lime by March 15, 2020.
In 2019, Lime scooters and bikes zoomed around town enough to circle the Earth 26 times, logging 643,000 miles.
The most popular ride was on the orange Howard Street bridge through Riverfront Park with 17,000 trips. Over 10,000 trips were on Spokane Falls Boulevard past the park.
While many can remember riding scooters in their childhood, a survey conducted in July of Lime users found that the average age of riders in Spokane is 36 years old.
Ninety percent of locals use Lime, where 1 in 4 riders are older than 45 years.
People riding the scooters reported a wide range of trip purposes including traveling to work, shopping, connecting with public transit, reaching entertainment and dining destinations, simply for fun and accessing resources and services.
Almost 70 percent of riders in the survey reported that a common barrier to riding was the lack of scooters available nearby to ride.
Lime also distributed over 4,000 helmets and through their Lime Access Equity program were able to provide tens of thousand of dollars in discounted rides for people on social service programs.
The city anticipates that approximately $90,000 in fees for the year will be reinvested in improving the safety of the program, says Pedestrian and Bicycle Planner Colin Quinn-Hurst.