E-bike pilot revs up for summer

The New York City Department of Transportation’s dockless bike share pilot is celebrating the upcoming one-year anniversary of its deployment of hundreds of dockless bikes in the outer borough by expanding pilot program. Lime – the bike and scooter company that has deployed hundreds of its traditional and pedal-assist dockless bikes in Staten Island and the Rockaways – began adding 200 new pedal-assist dockless bikes to its current fleet in the Rockaways over Memorial Day Weekend, reports Gothamist.

Aside from Citi Bike’s incorporation of a pedal-assist fleet, the DOT’s dockless bike share pilot marks the most significant step the city has taken to embracing e-bikes. While not all bikes included in the pilot are pedal-assist models, many of them are, and testing the concept of dockless micromobility could presumably help city officials judge the viability of e-scooters, too. But as Gothamist reports, the dockless bike program has not been without its hurdles, with users experiencing app glitches and confusion over where to drop bikes after riding.  

A bill to legalize e-bikes and e-scooters was introduced in the state Legislature last month, but with less than a month left of session, it’s still in committee. As lawmakers at the city and state level debate how to welcome – or shut out – the ever-popular vehicles, companies like Lime are hoping the dockless pilot is a step in the right direction. “We would love to get these solutions to people right now,” Phil Jones, Lime’s East Coast senior director of government relations, told City & State in March. “But we also understand that with this new technology and the way people are using it, you want to have a very good wealth of information to make sure that it's done properly.”

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