One way to zip across D.C. has gotten, well, a little less zippy.
Mobility companies Lime and Veo throttled the city’s almost 7,000 dockless e-bikes last month, putting new limits on how fast they can go. The slower speeds are coupled with other steps the companies have taken at the request of D.C. officials to address issues with speeding and crime, particularly among teenagers.
“Anecdotally we have some concerns about some of the shared transportation equipment being used to commit crimes,” Mayor Muriel Bowser said on Wednesday at the unveiling of the newest segment of the Metropolitan Branch Trail. “I read a lot of police reports and I know there is some misuse of the bikes.”
Users started noticing a decrease in how fast the electric motors on the bikes would let them go about two weeks ago. Lime said it has imposed a new 18 mph speed limit, down from 20 mph originally. Veo has limited its bikes to 15 mph. (Under five-year-old city regulations, scooters can only go up to 10 mph.)
E-bikes have grown in popularity since the pandemic and have been hailed as an easy and environmentally friendly way to get around. For the last two years, D.C. has offered qualified applicants financial incentives to buy an e-bike (293 people took advantage of the program before funding ran out last year). But the proliferation of both personal and rentable e-bikes has also raised safety concerns, with pedestrians getting buzzed by the fast-moving bikes on trails and sidewalks.
Earlier this summer, New York City’s bikesharing network CitiBike also dropped the top speed its electric bikes could reach from 18 mph to 15 in response to speeding concerns. E-bikes in D.C.’s Capital Bikeshare program have a top speed of 20 mph, but don’t typically reach that.
Meanwhile, some D.C. users complained that the new speed limit on Lime bikes made them feel less safe navigating in traffic. The company, which initially reduced its bikes’ top speed to 15 mph, later increased it to 18 mph in response to such feedback.
“E-bikes have made it possible for so many more people to bike in so many more ways, and I know there’s a lot of concerns about speed,” says Elizabeth Kiker, the executive director of the Washington Area Bicyclist Association. “We’re all figuring this out together.”
To that end, D.C. has installed two speed indicators along the Metropolitan Branch Trail, which display a smiley face if the rider is going below 15 mph or a frowny face if they’re going faster than that. Officials say the pilot project aims to change rider behavior and will allow the city to collect data on bike speeds.
But the move to slow down dockless bikes has also come in response to concerns over public safety, as city officials particularly focus on combatting juvenile crime. In several cases, Lime bikes have been used as getaway vehicles in robberies.
At D.C.’s request, Lime quietly implemented two changes over the summer: It started requiring users to scan their face along with an ID to verify their age (users have to be at least 18) and it implemented temporary “slow zones” where bikes can only go up to 8 mph. Those areas now include Navy Yard, U Street, The Wharf, and Chinatown. Those are also neighborhoods that have seen temporary juvenile curfews imposed over the summer and early fall.
“There were complaints about the reckless riding, and so we, in tandem with MPD, asked if we could have zones where they drop the speed,” says Sharon Kershbaum, the director of the District Department of Transportation.
Lime also made a significant change to its Lime Access program, which offers discounts to low-income residents for unlimited rides. (The program is required for all mobility providers operating in D.C.) While it was initially free, the company imposed a $5 monthly fee in the spring, which was more recently increased to $30. Spokesman Jacob Tugendrajch said the change was necessary because of significant increases in usage over the last year.
“Lime Access ridership has grown from less than 50,000 rides in all of 2022 to over 1.5 million rides so far this year,” he said. “With this rapid increase in usage, the city is working with us to find the right balance between sustainable pricing and recruiting new Lime Access users to keep the program a cornerstone of our service here over the long term.”
But the move drew concerns from D.C. officials and advocates, who said the new fee dramatically outpaced the pricing of Capital Bikeshare. “It was a huge increase without much notice,” says Kiker, adding that it could limit use of the bikes. (Lime made similar changes to its own low-income access program in Denver.)
Lime has since scaled back that increase to $15 a month.
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