500 e-assist bikes to soon boost Seattle bike-share fleet

A new fleet of rental bicycles is coming to Seattle, according to the Seattle Department of Transportation, adding to the mix of scooters and e-assist bikes already available on the city’s streets.

Chicago-based Veo will deploy 500 free-floating, e-assist bicycles in Seattle in the coming days. The company is permitted to add up to 1,500 bikes, which CEO and co-founder Candice Xie said they will likely do within two to three months. Veo will compete against Lime, which operates the red Jump bikes across town, marking the first time since 2019 that Seattle has had two dockless bike-share companies.

“We’re pretty excited to partner with the city to reduce traffic and also bring a more sustainable and green lifestyle for people, to help them resolve the last-mile transportation challenge and also provide another livable and fun element to the city,” Xie said in an interview.

Veo’s bikes will be partially electric, helping riders along as they pedal. They will also come equipped with a power-assist throttle on their handlebars for an extra boost up hills. Speeds on the bikes will be capped at 15 mph, even when coasting downhill. Each ride will cost one dollar to start and 29 cents for each minute riding, meaning a half-hour ride would cost nearly $10. Xie said there will be discounted prices for those who need them.

The addition of Veo could come as welcome news to bike advocates, who saw the city’s once ambitious plans for bicycle rentals take a nosedive in recent years. At one point, three different companies made bikes available for rent in Seattle. But turnover has been rampant, with several — including Spin, Ofo and, briefly, Lime — leaving the marketplace.

Xie said she is cognizant of the city’s experience with bike-share companies entering, then leaving the city. She also said she understands the frustration that comes with poorly maintained and parked bikes. Veo will be different, she pledged, in part because its manufacturing is in-house and it does not rely on gig workers or independent contractors to recharge its bikes.

“If the products are not good, the user won’t actually use it, especially in Seattle where the hills are very challenging,” she said.

The years since the pandemic’s onset have been rough for bike share. From its peak of 2.2 million rides in 2019, bike-share usage plummeted to just 316,000 rides in 2020 and 358,000 so far in 2021. The drop, which began as the city locked down to control COVID-19, hit bottom in the summer of 2020 when the city no longer had any bike-share companies operating within its limits.

After exiting in the spring of 2020, Lime, now part of Uber, has since returned to Seattle and generally has around 1,400 bikes in operation.

At the same time, as bicycle ridership has dropped, the use of electric scooters has jumped. Since they were given the green light in late 2020 after a lengthy review process, four scooter companies now operate in the city — a combination of sitting and standing devices. Riders have taken more than 1.8 million trips in 2021. Lime, Link, Spin and Wheel collectively operate between 3,500 and 5,000 scooters in Seattle, depending on the month.

Veo is currently or will soon be operating in more than 30 large and midsize cities, including New York and Chicago as well as Wichita, Kansas, and Birmingham, Alabama. The company’s ultimate goal is to reduce the use of single-occupancy vehicles in urban cores, said Xie.

Becky Edmonds, bike-share program manager for SDOT, said Veo’s addition should put to rest concerns that scooters will permanently replace bike sharing.

“People use it to get to work, they use it to go hang out with their friends, they use it to run errands,” she said. “I think one exciting way to use it is to use it to connect to light rail or other transit. … It expands who can easily access light rail stations.”

Among the concerns that have plagued bike and scooter sharing in the past is how they’re parked. Improperly placed bikes and scooters can create hazards for pedestrians, especially those with disabilities. SDOT has worked with disability rights organizations to improve messaging. The city has also added more designated parking areas for bikes and scooters. Citizens can report poorly parked vehicles through the city’s “Find it, Fix it” app.

Xie said the company’s use of full-time employees will mean greater oversight over how the bikes are parked, as well as ensuring they’re well maintained.

Xie said the company is committed to the markets it enters.

“We believe we can be a viable bike-share model and stay here long term for the community of Seattle,” she said.