If you have been to Brisbane in the last two years, you might have seen these flashes of green gliding past you with their faint electronic hum. Lime (and now orange) scooters have made quite the resurgence in post-covid times as they provide a social-distance, inexpensive and sustainable means of traveling.
They took over Brisbane city a couple of years ago and although they were praised by many, there were also some downsides to integrating this unorthodox means of transport into daily life.
That being said, let’s start with the good because the benefits are undeniable. As mentioned before, the Lime scooters offer a cheap, efficient, and sustainable method of transport.
They are very ‘no fuss’ and particularly appealing to the younger generation and students. In order to rent the bike, it would only set someone back 1 dollar and then 30 cents for every minute on the scooter. This works out to be about half the price of an average uber when considering the speed they run at, which is a max of about 25 km/hour.
Growing population and urbanisation have called for governments to find ways of reducing spikes in car use pollution. The Lime Scooter provides a rather eloquent solution in this regard. The Lime company is dedicated to transparent and sustainable practices. In Paris, 1.2 million car trips were replaced by these nifty little scooters, which replaced 330+ tons of CO2 emissions and this is only the beginning. They are working towards 100% renewable energy practices in every country and they are already well on their way in many countries such as Paris. Their scooter fleet is 100% electric and 80% of that electricity will be renewable energy by the end of this year. This is an eloquent solution to help push sustainability in the right direction but Lime is yet to iron out all the kinks with their design.
Safety was an issue with the initial release of these scooters. Some complained of them being a nuisance to pedestrians and hazardous because of insufficient hardware. There were accidents as a result. However, both the Lime company and Neuron Mobility (orange scooters) are introducing a third-generation scooter with improved safety features that will address the hardware problem. They are also working with the Brisbane Council at the moment in order to optimize safety and efficiency. There have been discussions about introducing speed limits in densely populated pedestrian areas and also outlining safe paths for scooters to use throughout the city.
However, the population of Brisbane and its geography must also be considered. Our region has a significantly smaller population and our size and space may make us ideal candidates for programs such as this. Cycling is proven to be most popular across the board in the Toowoomba Region, is there any reason these wouldn’t be as well?
It goes without saying that is an extremely exciting and innovative idea that has great potential in reducing motor-vehicle emissions. So, what do you think, should we grab a paintbrush?