Some new wheels are coming to Key Biscayne. Say “hi” to LimeBike.
The California startup launched on the bike-friendly island Wednesday.
“It uses a GPS smartphone app to find nearby LimeBike-owned bikes for residents to rent for whatever time period they’d like, and are charged just $1 for every half-hour.”
CitiBike is spreading further and further throughout Miami, but LimeBike takes it a step further by allowing you to lock your bike up literally anywhere in Key Biscayne.
“The community has been wonderful,” said Yuki Lin, a so-called “launcher” for the company.
Why Key Biscayne
Two Key Biscayne moms who found it a pain to haul their own bicycles up and down the elevators of their apartment buildings – especially with their kids in tow – were the ones who planted the idea of bringing LimeBike to Key Biscayne, Yuki said.
Now they can rent bikes and lock them up outside of buildings for the next people who come by to rent them.
The app launched on the campus of the University of North Carolina Greensboro just two weeks ago. And it’s already looking to launch in another city soon: Seattle.
Paying it forward
All of the revenue from Key Biscayne’s first month of bike riding is going to go to the community’s Sister Initiative with Liberty City. In 2013 the island partnered with Liberty City to connect kids and families from different socio-economic backgrounds to each other, and to programs like the food-desert-fighting Liberty City Food Co-op.
The partnership between Key Biscayne and LimeBike is what Yuki calls a way to provide affordable, eco-friendly access to transportation that’s also, “really, really fun.”
“In a nutshell: So far so good,” Yuki said.