New bike-share services have raised the ire of San Francisco traffic authorities after their bicycles were found ditched around the city, but an executive of one of the start-ups said the friction with officials is an opportunity to strengthen its relationship with the community.
“We are seeing this as an opportunity to improve, understand the needs, and make sure there’s education on both sides to create a long term program,” said Caen Contee, the vice president of partnerships for LimeBike.
That year-old start-up maintains a fleet of GPS-enabled bicycles, electric bikes, and scooters that can be unlocked with smartphones. Unlike some urban bike services that require riders to pick-up and drop-off at specific docking stations, you can hop on and off a LimeBike almost anywhere.
But LimeBike's dock-less model has led some users to abuse its flexibility. The city of San Francisco recently sent LimeBike and two other bike-share companies a cease-and-desist letter for creating [“a public nuisance.”](https://sf.curbed.com/2018/4/16/17244850/scooters-cease-desist-san-francisco-letter-stop-motorized) after unused bikes were left lying around the city or, in some cases, thrown into local waterways.
Contee said he is confident that bike-sharing companies can work through these early kinks the way the auto industry did in its early years, before there was any parking infrastructure or standard parking enforcement.
“We have been able to stand by the fact that we’re working with communities, with associations, hiring local people,” said Contee. He says the services have shown they can solve an immediate problem.
The company, founded last year, is backed by venture capitalists, including Andreessen Horowitz, and has raised $132 million in funding.
Riders have made over 88 million trips on shared bikes from 2010 to 2016, according to a [report by the National Association of City Transportation Officials](https://nacto.org/bike-share-statistics-2016/). LimeBike's Contee sees more opportunity for growth.
The start-up has plans to enter New York, where it will directly take on the incumbent Citi Bike. But Contee isn't worried about the competition.
"It’s about being complementary,” he told Cheddar. “There are areas of the city that don’t have it. How do we create something that allows them to be served?”
For full interview, [click here](https://cheddar.com/videos/limebike-wants-you-to-scoot-to-work).
Joe Cecela, Dream Exchange CEO, explains how they are aiming to form the first minority-controlled company to operate an exchange in U.S. history. Watch!
A Michigan judge is putting sponges in the hands of shoplifters and ordering them to wash cars in a Walmart parking lot when spring weather arrives. Genesee County Judge Jeffrey Clothier hopes the unusual form of community service discourages people from stealing from Walmart. The judge also wants to reward shoppers with free car washes. Clothier says he began ordering “Walmart wash” sentences this week for shoplifting at the store in Grand Blanc Township. He believes 75 to 100 people eventually will be ordered to wash cars this spring. Clothier says he will be washing cars alongside them when the time comes.
The State Department had been in talks with Elon Musk’s Tesla company to buy armored electric vehicles, but the plans have been put on hold by the Trump administration after reports emerged about a potential $400 million purchase. A State Department spokesperson said the electric car company owned by Musk was the only one that expressed interest back in May 2024. The deal with Tesla was only in its planning phases but it was forecast to be the largest contract of the year. It shows how some of his wealth has come and was still expected to come from taxpayers.
At 100 years old, the Goodyear Blimp is an ageless star in the sky. The 246-foot-long airship will be in the background of the Daytona 500 — flying roughly 1,500 feet above Daytona International Speedway, actually — to celebrate its greatest anniversary tour. Even though remote camera technologies are improving regularly and changing the landscape of aerial footage, the blimp continues to carve out a niche. At Daytona, with the usual 40-car field racing around a 2½-mile superspeedway, views from the blimp aptly provide the scope of the event.
You'll just have to wait for interest rates (and prices) to go down. Plus, this deal's a steel, the big carmaker wedding is off, and bribery is back, baby!
It’s a chicken-and-egg problem: Restaurants are struggling with record-high U.S. egg prices, but their omelets, scrambles and huevos rancheros may be part of the problem. Breakfast is booming at U.S. eateries. First Watch, a restaurant chain that serves breakfast, brunch and lunch, nearly quadrupled its locations over the past decade to 570. Fast-food chains like Starbucks and Wendy's added more egg-filled breakfast items. In normal times, egg producers could meet the demand. But a bird flu outbreak that has forced them to slaughter their flocks is making supplies scarcer and pushing up prices. Some restaurants like Waffle House have added a surcharge to offset their costs.
William Falcon, CEO and Founder of Lightning AI, discusses the ongoing feud between Elon Musk and Sam Altman, and how everyday people can use AI in their lives.
