Nice Ride Bringing 1,500 Dockless Bikes To Minneapolis

MINNEAPOLIS (WCCO) -- The Twin Cities' iconic bike share will almost double its fleet in Minneapolis come mid-September, introducing 1,500 blue dockless bikes.

Nice Ride aims to make the best of both its existing system and the dockless bikes that arrived in the Twin Cities in early August.

"The City of Minneapolis has given us a license to park these bikes in permitted zones," said Nice Ride executive director Bill Dossett. "So what that means is we're going to be creating parking spaces for bikes all over the city. It's going to look just like stripes on the ground, like you do for your car, and the app that you use to unlock the new bikes will show you where those parking zones are and make sure you park there."

Users who don't park in designated spots could face fines.

The spots themselves will be lined with tape, Nice Ride says, to allow the company to move them pretty easily if necessary.

The bigger incentive is to prevent bikes from ending up as curbside litter or up in random places -- a common problem for cities adapting to the new dockless trend.

Nice Ride's green docked bikes won't go anywhere anytime soon. Nice Ride believes the two systems can work together to reach more people.

This is part of a three-year partnership, with 1,500 bikes arriving in September, another 1,500 arriving next year, and potentially more depending on how the rollout goes.

Nice Ride typically takes its bikes off the streets by early November, and will do so with the dockless bikes, giving the nonprofit and the city roughly six weeks of data before heading into winter.