While there are many ways to get around New York City via public transportation such as subways, cabs and ferries, some areas of the Bronx lack options compared to the rest of NYC. Lime, a shared electric vehicle company that has provided bikes and e-scooters to Bronxites since 2021, recently announced that ridership in the Bronx had its best ridership year to date.
Lime’s focus when starting its e-scooter pilot and partnership with New York City Department of Transportation was on safety, equity and ensuring its ridership reflects the diversity of the entire city and the Bronx. Lime reported that over 99.9% of rides are completed without reported incidents. Another of Lime’s goals was to make its products more accessible and affordable to riders.
“With equity a central focus of Lime’s service in the Bronx, the company partnered with community organizations across the coverage area to introduce the benefits of e-scooters and to inform residents of its reduced-price program called Lime Access,” a Lime spokesperson said. “Lime Access is available to qualifying individuals who are eligible for city, state, federal subsidies, including NYCHA residents. As a result, more than 1,000 riders have used Lime Access to reach distant subway stops, commute to work, run errands and deepen connections across the East Bronx, amounting to over 100,000 total trips.”
Lime aims to give people back their time of day and shorten people’s travel time. Lime is partnered with Uber and acts similar to other Citi Bikes in allowing users to download an app to locate and use a Lime bike or e-scooter. Lime’s bikes also help cut down carbon emission.
“Avoided 14K metric tons of Co2 emissions, spared 1.6M gallons of gas (6.1M liters) from being consumed and replaced over 33M car trips,” Lime said in a press release.
According to Lime’s ridership stats, the Bronx e-scooter program has one of the highest rates of Lime Access use as a share of total trips across Lime’s 280+ programs globally.
Lime shared recent data from a survey of more than 700 Lime riders in the Bronx and found that 81.3% of riders said Lime provided better access programs to low-income riders; 88.6% of riders said Lime makes it easier for them to live and stay in the city; and 68.8% of riders said that they can more easily reach their current job or job opportunities.
Building on their success in the Bronx, Lime plans to expand to Queens in 2024.
For more coverage, follow us on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram @bronxtimes
