Friday: Last chance to take SDOT’s bike and scooter share survey

At Lime's Georgetown operations center. Their collection is missing the 8-speed pedal bike. Yes, I pointed this out to them. No, I did not sound cool doing it.

SDOT's bike and scooter share survey closes tomorrow (September 25), so if you have ridden Lime then definitely share your thoughts.

Take the survey (afterwards you can enter for a chance to win a $100 gift card of some kind).

It shouldn't take much longer than 10 minutes and mostly involves checking boxes about how you use bike/scooter share and what you like or dislike about it. The survey and the city's permit program is open to multiple companies, but at this point only Lime remains.

They will very likely receive lots of negative feedback about the system, some of which is fair. People riding fast on sidewalks and devices ending up in places that block walkways, curb ramps and accessible routes are very real problems that continue to plague the system. Many of these problems are extensions of our larger car problem, which fails to provide roadway conditions that feel safe for many people to ride and occupies so much right of way that too many uses end up competing for limited sidewalk space. But Lime devices and users are the ones that stand out and are a singular target for frustration.

But as we've seen this summer, Lime is also capable of carrying huge numbers of trips in our city and is serving a major transportation role. During the U.S. World Cup games, Lime carried more trips than the multi-billion-dollar SR-99 highway tunnel or the even busier Aurora Bridge. Only I-5 and I-90 carried more trips than Lime. It also seems to be competing successfully with Uber and Lyft, and doing so in a far more sustainable manner by using efficient electric and pedal-assisted devices. Lime's totals are approaching 10 million Seattle trips in 2026, a mark they may hit before October. These are amazing feats that are worth celebrating.

I am interested in seeing the results from their questions about how people feel about the different bike and scooter styles. Below is how I completed that section (I'm not suggesting you copy my responses):

The survey does not break out the new model of LimeBike from the older bike model, so we won't be able to see from these results how the new model affects people's interest in biking versus scootering. As I noted in my review of the new model, The new LimeBike is the best bike share bike I've ever tried, and it's not even close." I am curious to see if the general population agrees. My personal tastes are not always in line with the average person on this stuff. For example, I don't really like riding the stand-up scooters yet they remain the most popular device type among users.

It's not clear yet what if any significant changes the city may make to the scooter and bike share permit system. Since Lime is the last provider standing, it may make sense to shift to a single-vendor contract system rather than an open permit system. With a single-vendor contract, the city could in theory work more closely with Lime and negotiate more details around how the service should operate. One possible policy would be for the city and Lime to partner to roll out an expansion of bike corrals in conjunction with instituting geolocated Lime parking, meaning riders would be unable end their trip unless they are within a designated area. The city could draft a policy or study that outlines the density of parking availability needed to make location-limited parking work without significantly reducing ridership, negotiate a roll-out plan with Lime, and then start working to make it happen. I'm sick of the city and bike share companies identifying this as a problem and then not taking the kind of action needed to fix it.

I doubt it's feasible to do the whole city at once, but perhaps they could do a couple blocks or a neighborhood at a time. Pioneer Square could be a good trial location since the city already has such a bike and scooter plan ready to go.

Voi bikes in Glasgow use geolocation tech for bike parking, and it did seem to reduce the number of bikes randomly blocking walkways from what I saw. However, there didn't seem to be enough parking areas to make sure a bike is always nearby.

How did you answer the survey? Let us know in the comments below.