Bikes and scooters, it was recently announced, will once again be available for rent on the streets of Dallas, with several conditions in place designed to avoid difficulties presented by earlier pilot programs.
The latest iteration of the Dallas Dockless Vehicle Program will include solutions to the previously recognized problems from the shared bike programs of 2017 and 2018, as well as the 2018-2020 shared scooter experiment.
Three suppliers have been selected by the city: Bird, Lime and Superpedestrian. Kelly Pierce, Lime Dallas Operations Manager, explained that all three vendors will be providing a smaller fleet of 500 vehicles each.
Among the improvements made by Lime are the inclusion of speed limiting to 20 miles per hour (or 10 miles per hour in slow zones) and additional programming preventing their vehicles from operating in restricted areas. In the past, scooters had been taken on Dallas freeways.
The city is requiring an education program be initiated by the providers. Often, municipalities utilize printing services for informing or educating the public about public restrictions.
Lime has redesigned its scooters to have a lower center of gravity, to provide a more stable ride, as well as an improved suspension and braking system. For those who prefer to not stand, the company will be supplementing its fleet with 50 bikes.
The original start-up date in February was moved back to March, but according to Pierce it will likely be closer to April before the program is launched.
