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Lime, Hartford’s once-popular bike-sharing program, will end

Lime bicycles are parked at State House Square last year. (Brad Horrigan / Hartford Courant)
Brad Horrigan / Hartford Courant
Lime bicycles are parked at State House Square last year. (Brad Horrigan / Hartford Courant)
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Just months after city council members petitioned to bring electric scooters to Hartford through Lime, its bike sharing program, Mayor Luke Bronin and the company say they are cutting ties.

An official with Lime confirmed Tuesday that the service was winding down in Hartford.

“In the coming weeks, we will be phasing out Lime bikes through the greater Hartford region,” said Scott Mullen, director of Northeast expansion for Lime. “Riders should be sure to check the app for the location of the nearest vehicle.”

Mullen did not provide an end date for the program.

Bronin said the city would soon issue a new request for proposals, seeking to partner with another bike sharing company. He said Hartford had been contacted by other businesses, and city leaders wanted to tap into that interest.

“We always viewed this as a pilot program, and we will probably be putting out either an RFP or another process to identify others that could come in,” Bronin said.

Lime bikes hit city streets last June. In November, after Hartford announced that Lime had more than 25,000 rides in its first 100 days, council members introduced a measure that would have allowed Lime to bring other vehicles to the city, including electric scooters.

Mullen said Lime will not participate in the new request for proposals.

“We learned a lot, they learned a lot,” he said of the partnership with Hartford. “It was always the plan that they would go through a more broad, regional RFP.”

In recent months, residents have spotted damaged bikes — from broken baskets to bent wheels — throughout Hartford. Lime bikes were left wayward on city streets and at least one was found submerged in a pond at Bushnell Park.

Mullen said Tuesday that the damaged bikes were not behind the company’s decision to retreat from Hartford. He did not elaborate on its reason for leaving.

Jimmy Sanchez, the council’s majority leader, said that after the possible addition of scooters was made public, the city was contacted by two other bike-sharing programs with the electric devices. He did not name the companies, but said Hartford officials have been in contact with them.

“We weren’t aware there were other entities that had a scooter program, and to be fair, we thought we needed to listen to them,” Sanchez said.

Lime bicycles are parked at State House Square last year. (Brad Horrigan / Hartford Courant)
Lime bicycles are parked at State House Square last year. (Brad Horrigan / Hartford Courant)

Lime announced last week that it has obtained another $310 million in financing, valuing the company at $2.4 billion in a market growing crowded with companies eager to enter the “micromobility” market. Uber Technologies is among Lime’s leading investors. The company is aggressively expanding in Europe.

Increasingly, Lime is pushing its electric bikes and scooters in cities around the world. In Hartford, the company brought its distinctive lime green bicycles, but had not immediately been successful in efforts to win approval for its scooters.

Bronin said city leaders would provide an update on the bike sharing situation in the coming weeks.

Jenna Carlesso can be reached at jcarlesso@courant.com.