Lyft becomes largest bike-share service in U.S.

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U.S. ride-hailing company Lyft says it has become America's largest bike-share service after it finished the final close of its acquisition of the New York City-based mobility startup Motivate.

The deal, which reportedly costs about 250 million U.S. dollars, makes Lyft a bike-share powerhouse that hopes to have the largest dockless bike fleet in the world after China, which has the largest population of bike-share riders across the globe.

As part of Lyft, Motivate owns a host of bike-rental services including Citi Bike in New York, Ford GoBike in San Francisco Bay Area, Divvy in Chicago, Capital Bikeshare in Washington, D.C., as well as other North American areas.

"Bikeshare is a natural extension of Lyft's vision to improve transportation access, sustainability and affordability," Lyft said on Thursday.

With this acquisition, the company is planning to add thousands of bikes and stations in communities that haven't had access to transportation and to deploy new electric bikes.

Earlier on Thursday, New York Mayor Bill de Blasio said Lyft will invest 100 million dollars in Citi Bike to double its service area and triple its size to nearly 40,000 bikes in the next five years.

By promoting bikes and scooters as alternative means of transportation, Lyft is working hard to reach its goal of taking one million cars off the road by the end of 2019.

Source(s): Xinhua News Agency