Lyft has pulled thousands of electric pedal-assist bikes from the streets of New York, San Francisco, and Washington D.C., the company said Monday. Over 1000 Citi Bikes e-bikes have been removed in the City of New York.
Lyft, which operates bike-share programs in roughly a dozen US cities through its acquisition of Motivate in 2018, said the move was out of an abundance of caution and only affecting the three specific cities. E-bikes have been hitting fleets as part of the company's commitment to expanding the program, it's said previously.
Citi-Bike reports "We recently received a small number of reports from riders who experienced stronger than expected braking force on the front wheel. Out of an abundance of caution, we are proactively removing the pedal-assist bikes from service for the time being," the blog post said. "We know this is disappointing to the many people who love the current experience — but reliability and safety come first."
Streetsblog New York reported the pedal-assisted bikes, which allow riders to reach speeds of 18 mph thanks to an electronic 'boost,' first began disappearing from the Citi Bike map over the weekend before an announcement was made at 5:00 am Sunday.
The New York Times reports: In recent months, dozens of riders have reported injuries while riding electric Citi Bikes, prompting the company on Sunday to pull all of the approximately 1,000 electric bicycles from New York City’s streets amid safety concerns about the brakes. Lyft, which owns Citi Bike, took similar precautions with its other bike-sharing services in Washington and San Francisco.
We are presently representing a number of Citi-Bike customers involved in a crash due to these defective conditions found on Citi-Bike. If you have been involved in a crash or accident because of a dangerous condition on board a citi-bike, including brakes and fenders, contact our firm to discuss your legal rights and options.