Winnipeg wants to make room on its streets for electric bikes and scooters

Winnipeg wants to make room on its streets for electric bikes and scooters

City council's public works committee decided to set aside six months for studying how electric bikes and scooters can be added to the city life.

U.S. firm Lime intends to operate in Winnipeg. It already works in several Canadian cities, and now it is Winnipeg's turn. Clients of the company only need to download a specific app. With its help, they can find a scooter or a bike next to them any time of the day.

A person can use a bike or a scooter for any trip up to 1 km. Then he leaves it on the street, and another user can use it. Also, each scooter has a built-in speed limit to avoid fines or incidents on the city’s roads.

Some American cities came out against such ideas, as their sidewalks became overloaded very much. In this regard, Winnipeg took the time to make the right decision. Probably, some changes should be made to provide comfort to the residents of the city when using this new type of transport.

Winnipeg authorities will study how other Canadian and American cities began working with Lime and how to prepare the city for this as property crime is quite popular in the city. Chris Schafer, senior director strategic development for Lime, said that the company is not afraid of thefts.

"It's negligible. The reason being is the vehicles are locked. Unless you use the app to unlock it, it makes the vehicle not useful to you," he said.

At the moment, Winnipeg sees positive changes when Lime starts operating. As the practice shows, residents of other Canadian cities immediately liked electric bikes and scooters. 

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