Ride-hailing firm Lyft highlights new bike-share service

Lyft, the ride-hailing firm which rivals Uber, has shown off the distinctive, pink-tyred bicycles which it is to use in its new bike-share programme. The company has completed its acquisition of US bike-share giant Motivate, which was announced in the summer, and will branch into two-wheel journeys soon. The company says this represents a “natural extension of Lyft’s vision to improve transportation access, sustainability and affordability”. Lyft says that 80% of all bike-share rides in the US were co
December 5, 2018 Read time: 2 mins
8789 Lyft, the ride-hailing firm which rivals 8336 Uber, has shown off the distinctive, pink-tyred bicycles which it is to use in its new bike-share programme.


The company has completed its acquisition of US bike-share giant Motivate, which was announced in the summer, and will branch into two-wheel journeys soon. The company says this represents a “natural extension of Lyft’s vision to improve transportation access, sustainability and affordability”.

Lyft says that 80% of all bike-share rides in the US were completed on Motivate systems last year. New York mayor Bill de Blasio announced this week that the city and Lyft will be tripling the size of the Citi Bike initiative to 40,000 bikes.

Motivate is behind a number of other bike-share systems, including: Ford GoBike (San Francisco), Divvy (Chicago), Bluebikes (Boston), Capital Bikeshare (Washington, DC), BIKETOWN (Portland), CoGo (Columbus, Ohio) and Nice Ride (Minneapolis).

The bikes will be added to Lyft’s transit app. In a statement, the firm said: “We’ve only started to scratch the surface of what’s possible in shifting as a society from car trips to bike trips. With this acquisition, we are poised to help take bikeshare to the next level: adding thousands of bikes and stations in communities that haven’t had access to transportation; making bikeshare membership more convenient and affordable than ever; and deploying new electric bikes, on a major scale.”

Related Content

  • May 30, 2019
    GoBike to offer bike-share service for disabled riders in Oakland
    Ford’s GoBike is to launch an adaptive bike-share pilot programme for disabled people living in the city of Oakland, San Francisco Bay. The 26-week pilot stems from an agreement with the Bay Area Outreach & Recreation Program (BORP), Lyft and the Oakland Department of Transportation (DoT). Caroline Samponaro, head of bike, pedestrian and scooter policy at Lyft, says: “Launching this programme will allow us to learn more about the specific needs of the disability community and work closely with them.” B
    Read More
  • May 14, 2018
    Lyft, Uber have mixed impact on San Fran mobility
    The extent to which ride-hailing has become a real force in the mobility landscape of San Francisco is great for consumers – but there are downsides, a report finds. Andrew Stone takes a look. Uber and Lyft, the two major ride-hailing platforms in San Francisco, are out-competing local cab firms in many ways - and are firmly established as a significant part of the daily mobility mix there, a recent study reveals. Researchers mined publicly-available data derived from the application programming interface
    Read More
  • February 10, 2017
    Bike-share companies merge, accelerate future innovation
    Bike-share operations specialist Motivate is merging with bike-share technology solutions provider 8D Technologies, marrying Motivate’s operational and urban transportation experience with 8D’s hardware and software, enabling the company to deliver bike share systems and accelerate future innovation. Motivate manages many of the bike share systems in North America, while 8D Technologies powers nearly 40,000 bikes in bike share programs globally and already provides the hardware and software for many of
    Read More
  • November 25, 2019
    Lyft pulls out of six US cities

    Lyft is withdrawing its scooter operations from the US cities of Nashville, San Antonio, Atlanta, the Phoenix area, Dallas and Columbus.  

    A company spokesperson told TechCrunch “We’re choosing to focus on the markets where we can have the biggest impact. We’re continuing to invest in growing our bike and scooter business but will shift resources away from smaller markets and toward bigger opportunities.”

    Read More

Highlighted Content