Bike and scooter startup Lime announced that it’s expanding its discount program for low-income customers. Starting today, qualifying users will receive a 50 percent discount to ride the company’s electric-powered scooters and bikes. That’s a hefty 95 percent discount on its normal pedal bikes.
Lime first launched its Lime Access program in Seattle and LA roughly one year ago before bringing it nationwide. The program is meant to promote “an affordable way to use Lime in your city” by allowing customers to ride a shared bike or scooter without needing a smartphone or credit card. According to Lime, any person who “demonstrates eligibility or participation in any state or federally-run assistance program” is eligible for the program.
Typically, those who want to grab one of Lime’s scooters or bikes can use their smartphones to locate one nearby and scan a QR code on the back of the vehicle to unlock it. But that smartphone requirement can be a hurdle for some. In 2017, a Pew Research study found that only 64 percent of Americans with an annual income of below $30,000 owned a smartphone. So even if those people could afford to ride on Lime’s vehicles, they would still lack the ability to obtain one.
To bypass the smartphone requirement, Access allows users to text a Lime services number, rather than scanning a code, to unlock a given bike or scooter. The company also partners with PayNearMe, a system that allows people to get their Lime credit using cash, rather than a credit card.
“While there’s certainly more work to be done, we believe that easier access to our Lime-E and Lime-S products will help to lower transportation barriers and bring mobility independence to more community members across the US,” Lime said in a statement.
Despite the discounts offered by Lime and similar bike / scooter-sharing companies, including rival company Bird, it’s still a mode of transport that’s overwhelmingly used by the wealthy and white, according to a study released last year. One of the biggest reasons, researchers found, was that two-thirds of lower-income respondents that they surveyed didn’t know these discounted programs existed, even if they were freely available in their city. And those who were aware of bike-share discounts reported not knowing about the availability of cash payment options.