The City of Orlando has begun painting dockless parking boxes across Downtown Orlando to encourage riders to leave their bikes in areas that are out of the way of pedestrians and oncoming traffic.
Orlando City Hall adopted revisions to the existing framework that regulated how bike share companies operated in the City back in October 2018. The changes paved the way for new bike share systems like the newly-launched Lime to set up shop in City limits without having to install any sort of infrastructure; like the racks that homegrown operator Juice Bike Share was forced to install in City right-of-way.
According to City of Orlando’s Transportation Director, Billy Hattaway, the new ordinance is performing well and Lime Bike Share has already seen huge ridership numbers since they launched last November; over 25,000 rides with over 25,000 miles in just two months, which, according to Hattaway, is what Juice managed in all of 2018.
Hattaway also told us that while the free-range bikes have yet to be found in any strange locations like in other cities (see #bikelitter) the City’s Transportation Department felt the need to put in helpful suggestive prompts to steer riders to park their bikes in less disruptive areas and out of more congested sidewalks and roadways.
Lime is also adding geo-fences to their bikes to gently push riders to certain areas and prohibit others like Lake Eola or on hospital campuses in case they obstruct access for first responders.
The City is also working with Lime to gather data from the embedded GPS units in their bikes to identify high-need cycling corridors in order to increase their safety and to remove any hazards that may exist.
Juice Bike Share released a detailed heat map of their members’ most-trafficked routes in Orlando back in 2016 which you can see HERE.