A few years ago–say, circa 2017–we had these lime-green bicycles parked all over town. And now there aren’t any: haven’t seen one in years.
It was supposed to be “carbon-neutral travel.” Save The Planet. Don’t drive your car–rent a lime bike instead. They had these little meters attached to them so they could charge you for it. I think you put a quarter in the meter, to get started, and later they would bill you electronically. And people left them parked everywhere but up a tree.
What happened to them? Where did they go?
Well, I don’t know. All I could find out was that they were sort of a bust in Seattle and in 2019 Seattle abandoned the program because it kept losing money, never turned a profit. And so the bikes were replaced in Seattle and elsewhere by electric scooters. Those, too, were supposed to Save The Planet. But I haven’t seen any of those scooters around here.
Not much fun when it’s raining, though, is it? It rains a lot in Seattle. You’d think someone might have remembered that before they bought the bikes.