Skip to main content

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

  • June 20, 2018
    Melbourne and bike-share firm oBike part ways
    Singapore-based bicycle-share firm oBike has “temporarily withdrawn” from Melbourne, according to city authorities. Unlike many other bike-share schemes worldwide, oBike has no docking stations – and this has meant that oBikes have been abandoned around the city by users. Pictures of the distinctive yellow bikes in trees, on bus shelters and in the Yarra river circulated widely on social media. A memorandum of understanding (MOU) between the city and the company says that oBike is responsible for ensu
  • January 3, 2018
    Scoot expands fleet to include electric bikes in San Francisco
    Provider of shared light electric vehicle (LEV) services Scoot Networks (Scoot) has added a full fleet of electric bicycles (e-bikes) to its service to meet the needs of residents in San Francisco who are seeking more affordable and valuable transit options. Users can access the bicycles via the same app used for Scoot’s shared electric scooters. The e-bikes come with an electric motor to make pedalling easier for terrains such as hills, but riders are required to pedal to reach the maximum speed of 20mph.
  • February 24, 2016
    Shaking up the taxi market with smarter ride requests
    Timothy Compston looks at the rise of Uber and ride request mobile apps. There is little doubt that the advent of Uber has come as major shock to established taxi operators and has caused regulators, cities and DOTs to rethink current regulations so they can keep pace with the changing dynamics of the marketplace.
  • March 14, 2012
    City of Boston employees to use car sharing services
    Zipcar, the leading car sharing network, has announced a new partnership with the city of Boston to launch a new fleet sharing programme called FleetHub. Through this programme, the city of Boston has combined vehicles once dedicated to city departments to create an interdepartmental fleet.