There will be more Lime Bikes around South Bend in the next few months as the company increases its presence in the city.
There are currently 972 green bikes around South Bend. Lime Bike has plans to increase that to 2,000 or 3,000 by February.
The company has been operating in the city since July. The dockless bike shares are monitored and redistributed around the city and college campuses every day.
Nathan Hasse is the operations lead for Lime Bike in South Bend. He said the bikes are in high demand right now, and they think that will continue into the winter.
“Our anticipation is that people will choose to take a five minute bike ride using a Lime Bike as opposed to walking in the snow for 20 minutes.”
Hasse said they will be monitoring the weather and will move bikes around to keep them from being buried in snow and out of the path of plows.
“I’m gonna gather a lot of my specialists and do some sweeps around town and again grab a lot of those bikes and pull them closer in to where they are safer, and again, away from plows or maybe just pull some of them off the road.”
Hasse said one thing they won’t have to worry about is temperature caused flat tires, as Lime Bikes have solid tires made of styrofoam and rubber.