More electric scooters will soon roll out on the streets of Memphis
The company Lime will deploy its electric scooters on the streets of Memphis again on Monday, this time under an agreement with the city of Memphis.
The city’s Chief Communications Officer Ursula Madden confirmed the city reached a deal with Lime in a statement on Friday.
“250 scooters will land in Memphis on Dec. 3. Lime has agreed to wait until we move past the St. Jude Marathon before deploying,” Madden said. “We look forward to the partnership.”
Lime released its signature green scooters in Memphis in October without permits, where they joined Bird scooters. An interim operating agreement governs Bird scooters in Memphis. Both companies will pay the city $1 a day, and that money is funneled into a city fund for mobility projects.
Lime scooters will hit the streets in Downtown, Midtown and Uptown Memphis neighborhoods on Monday, according to the dockless scooter company. Days after the company dropped the scooters in Memphis, Lime’s Director of Government Relations Sam Sadle issued a statement that said the company would remove its scooters from Memphis streets “as a show of good faith,” but city crews were already in the process of removing them.
The company was not fined for the deployment of its scooters without permits.
According to a letter Sadle sent to Memphis Mayor Jim Strickland and the City Council, Lime has been seeking permission to operate in Memphis since December.
Lime scooters cost $1 to unlock and 15 cents per minute riding, and are accessed using Lime’s mobile app. The company will hold a scooter demonstration from 11:30 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. Monday in Court Square, in downtown Memphis.
Lime’s first Memphis scooter release played out similarly to Bird’s debut in Nashville, where the company agreed to suspend its operations earlier this year until rules were put in place regulating the use of scooters. Both Bird and Lime are now operating in Nashville under a new set of rules.
Local “juicers” will gather the scooters daily and charge them overnight, then deploy them the next day in approved areas, according to the company.
Jamie Munks covers Memphis city government and politics for The Commercial Appeal. She can be reached at jamie.munks@commercialappeal.com or 901-529-2536.