Dockless Bike-Share Bros Grilled By Boulder City Council

BOULDER, CO – The Boulder City Council wants a pilot dockless bike program in the city, but they want to go slow, they told representatives from two rental bike companies at a June 12 special hearing.

The council voted unanimously to allow companies to install up to 100 of the rental bicycles, and voted to approve a staff recommendation that the cycles must have a locking mechanism.

"Locking bikes to a fixed object will prevent some of the issues faced by other cities without this requirement, such as bikes being moved into inappropriate locations, especially by people who are not dockless bikeshare users," a staff recommendation submitted to the council said.

But representatives from Lime and ofo complained that the restrictions were too tight, and said they might discourage bike companies from coming to Boulder, the Daily Camera reported.

"There is nothing more (these companies) want than to be in Boulder," said Marcus Pachner, representing ofo. Nick Barber, of Lime, complained that starting with only 100 bikes was an amount that was "simply too low," the Camera reported. Company representatives insisted that a mandatory locking mechanism would dissuade the largest companies from coming to Boulder. But David Kemp, senior transportation planner said three bike companies with locking features had already approached the city.

In May, Boulder was voted third-best city in the country for cyclists by advocacy group PeopleForBikes (Fort Collins was voted number one).

You can watch the city council's special hearing here (the discussion starts at about 3:25).

Read the Daily Camera story here.

Image: Nick Barber of Lime testifies at a city council hearing June 12 via the City of Boulder.