06-25-18 Council Minutes - Laserfiche WebLink

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REGULAR MEETING June 25, 2018 Councilmember Regina Williams-Preston asked,When you said single-speed and three (3)-speed, are those the bikes that have motors? What are you talking about there? Mr. Mudd replied, Those are the number of gears. So our first(1St) generation bikes with the solid green wheels,those are a single speed so you couldn't change gears. The three (3)-speeds are nice so if you have a hill or something you can change the gear and it makes it easier. Councilmember Regina Williams-Preston stated,Now we have the three (3)-speed is what you're saying? Mr. Mudd replied, Yes, we have the original one (1) and then the three (3)-speeds. Councilmember Regina Williams-Preston followed up, Ok, and I also have a question about procedure. First (1St) of all, I love LimeBikes. I think they are great and I'm excited to see them everywhere. Everyone is using them. Kids,especially, it is really awesome. There are whole gangs of children riding LimeBikes down the street. I did have an issue though. Someone left a LimeBike right on the corner of my alley. And it stayed there and stayed there for a while and got run over and it was just a mess. What is your process?I did finally call a one-eight hundred(1-800)number and it took about three (3)weeks. But what is your process on that? Mr. Mudd replied, We have people that go out every day that patrol the City and if a customer or citizen notices an issue and calls the number on the basket and reports it, then we get a service ticket and then once we get that,we have a person that goes out and does those too. We try to have a twenty-four(24)hour turn around. Councilmember Regina Williams-Preston then asked, And is there any thought of having the motorized bikes? I thought I heard something about that. Mr. Mudd replied,There has been some talks but as of right now,there isn't much progress toward it. Personally, I would love to see them here. They are a lot of fun. Councilmember Jo M. Broden stated, Safety and education endeavors. What are you doing to hit those topics? Do you have anything built into your business model that addresses those issues? Mr. Mudd replied, Yes. On all of our vehicles we have key details to it. It says always wear a helmet and use safety gear and follow all the local traffic laws. Councilmember Jo M. Broden followed up, Is there an ability to subsidize someone's bike use for, let's say, one (1)month? Can an employer do that? Mr. Mudd replied, We do have a few avenues. The easiest route would be to get in contact with the local employer and sometimes we could set up coupon codes for the employee. Or they could put in a prepaid debit card in the person's profile. In our app there is a direct pay option or you can set money aside ahead of time. Councilmember Jo M. Broden asked, Is that a new feature or has that been in place all along? Mr. Mudd replied, As far as I know it wasn't there at the beginning but we've had it for a while. Councilmember Jo M. Broden followed up, Would you help with publicity on that? Mr. Mudd replied, Absolutely. There are a lot of things we could do. We could put something on our Facebook page. Councilmember John Voorde asked, How many bikes are in use and how many times are they used? Mr. Mudd replied, We do get a report every day for the number of trips per vehicle and when I looked yesterday we were at point eight five (0.85) trips. And we have just under eight hundred (800) bikes in our South Bend fleet. Councilmember Karen White stated, Throughout the community, you see the bikes just laying on the ground. Is there any way we could have racks for the bikes? Mr. Mudd replied, There are talks going on right now for some solutions to that. As far as bike racks go, we do make exceptions with certain cities if we have to come to an agreement on it. But 4