Local bike sharing non-profit Nice Ride Minnesota announced Friday that its network will undergo several major updates this spring, including the expansion of its fleet to include Minneapolis' first electronic bikes.
Nice Ride will begin an electric bike pilot program in April. These "ebikes" are equipped with pedal assist, which gives riders a motorized boost as they pedal. The organization will begin by launching 500 ebikes, and will work toward adding more than 1,000 additional ebikes throughout summer 2019.
Nice Ride expects to have more than 600 bike hubs for dockless blue bikes, docked green bikes and ebikes in Minneapolis this year. The group's traditional green docked bikes will ultimately be replaced by electric bikes, the Star Tribune reports.
Hoping to increase equity and access to bike sharing in Minneapolis, Nice Ride also said Friday that it will prioritize parking hub placement in Phillips, Cedar-Riverside and North Minneapolis. Nice Ride will also debut a new reduced-fare membership program to make bike share more accessible to Minneapolis residents from low-income backgrounds.
Nice Ride was established in 2010 and has been operating a bike sharing program in Minneapolis since then. In September 2018, Nice Ride rolled 1,500 dockless bikes onto Minneapolis streets for the first time.
Nice Ride is owned by Motivate, which was bought by Lyft last year.
"For years, Nice Ride has been at the forefront of bike share in America, and we're eager to launch our plan to take the network to the next level starting this spring," Caroline Samponaro, head of bike, scooter and pedestrian policy at Lyft, said in a statement. "As the new partner to the city in bike share, Lyft can't wait to bring pedal-assist ebikes to Minneapolis and expand service to new neighborhoods."
