Lime, a electric scooter and bike rentals company, is putting out 500 scooters in River City under the leadership of a university graduate.

Lime Started its Launch with 300 Electric Scooters

On March 7th, the launch began with 300 e-scooters through a partnership with the community organization Sports Backers RVA. An additional 200 scooters over the coming days will be launching in the capital city.

Strong Bicycling Culture

“There were no bike lanes when I went to Richmond,” Robert Gardner, Lime’s director for the Mid-Atlantic Region, said. “A very strong bicycling culture has always been there. At least for me, though, I would have imagined anything like a dockless network.”

Let’s go to 2021. Not the only scooter option available to Richmond residents is Lime. Moreover, it is the first company to deploy dockless e-scooters across the city is Mobility. Yet, Lime is different, according to Gardner.

Lime Scooters are Dependable

“Lime is the largest provider in the commonwealth,” Gardner said. “In fact, we bring a bit of a different model to the city. As a result, in terms of the way we’re doing it, it’s a little more centralized. Therefore, you can have a daily use habit with Lime. A Lime scooter is dependable. It will be there on your walk, also on errands, as opposed to sort of a variable deployment.”

Urban Environments

The models used for Lime’s e-scooters are built for the purpose of urban environments, Garder said. It is using internationally in European countries and Australia.

In the City of Richmond, talks began in 2019 to expand Lime’s presence in the commonwealth. Moreover, there are programs in Alexandria, Arlington, Norfolk, Roanoke, and Fairfax for Lime.

Gardner said he’s had conversations with the City now for almost two years. In fact, we have had many discussions. From there, we want to make sure that we have turned a corner with COVID-19. To make it known we are available, Gardner said. To get permitted, it does take some time. Also, to make sure we are ordering new scooters, therefore, we have everything we have in place. We want to have a local pool of employees that are there.