Eager not to be overshadowed by its sister city, St. Paul surprised some in the cycling community a few months ago when it chose to court potential dockless bike-sharing partners on its own, rather than let Minneapolis-based Nice Ride take the lead.

St. Paul hasn’t finished contract negotiations. But two national players in the bike-sharing industry are now poised to split the Twin Cities between them.

Following St. Paul’s recent request for proposals — which drew responses from four vendors — the city has entered into contract negotiations with LimeBike. The San Francisco-area startup leases bikes in more than 65 cities across the U.S. and 18 American college campuses, as well five European cities.

Minneapolis, meanwhile, will soon be home to Motivate, a competing for-profit vendor that has partnered with Nice Ride.

There’s some question what a LimeBike contract would mean for Nice Ride, the nonprofit that has overseen bike-sharing throughout Minneapolis and St. Paul for nearly a decade, as well as how two competing vendors may impact bicycle connections between the two cities.

Nice Ride’s future in St. Paul remains cloudy. The capital city is home to a fourth of the Nice Ride docking stations, but just 7 percent of its rides originate there. Nice Ride has no contractual obligations to stick around.

“We’ve just sort of permitted their (Nice Ride) stations in St. Paul on an ad hoc basis,” said Russ Stark, chief resilience officer for the city. “They haven’t communicated with me their intentions.”

Stark said he spoke with Bill Dossett, executive director of Nice Ride Minnesota, earlier this year. He said Dossett was generally open to maintaining a presence in St. Paul at least until a new vendor was up and running.

Stark said St. Paul’s contract with a dockless bike vendor was “weeks, not months, away.”

Among their appeal, the LimeBikes can be left on sidewalks and other designated areas resting against their own kickstands, and they do not need to be placed inside a large docking station. In other words, unlike traditional Nice Ride bikes, LimeBikes can be picked up virtually anywhere.

Within about two weeks, LimeBike is expected to make its Minnesota debut in Edina and Golden Valley on a trial basis.

The demonstration would run through the end of the year, said Mark Nolan, a transportation planner for the city of Edina.

The startup also has entered into discussions with New Hope to potentially bring LimeBike services there in 2019.

ST. PAUL, EDINA … BUT NOT MINNEAPOLIS

There’s one Minnesota city, however, where LimeBike won’t be a major player anytime soon, and that’s Minneapolis.

Nice Ride — a nonprofit bike-sharing vendor that has operated in the Twin Cities since 2010 — recently entered into a five-year agreement with Motivate, a national bike-sharing company with operations or operating partners in New York, Washington, D.C., Boston and five other major markets.

In Minneapolis, Nice Ride Motivate Minnesota will soon roll out blue dockless bikes alongside the traditional green Nice Ride bikes, adding 1,500 bikes to its fleet this year and another 1,500 next year. Electric bikes, winter bikes and other amenities also are part of its plans.

Beginning next year, Nice Ride is allowed to remove the green bikes from its system, provided the nonprofit replaces each one with a blue dockless bike on a one-to-one basis. Those rules come from a new appendix to Nice Ride’s 10-year agreement with Minneapolis, which expires in August 2021.

Related Articles Staffers at MPR’s music stations The Current and Classical MPR vote to unionize

With new shops and street improvements, Saturday’s ‘Rice and LarpenTOUR’ showcases three cities

Metro Transit workers reject contract offer, vote to authorize strike

The beer industry looks for ways to help black brewers

Hastings bar owner: $7K state fine for alleged mask violation is ‘outrageous’ “We don’t know how quickly that will happen,” said Josh Johnson, assistant parking systems manager for the city of Minneapolis. “That’s up to Nice Ride.”

The blue bikes will soon be ubiquitous throughout Minneapolis. In St. Paul, not so much.

Ellen Biales, a program manager for St. Paul Public Works, said she could not comment on her department’s contract negotiations with LimeBike — or even identify who the initial four competing vendors were — as nothing has been finalized.

NICE RIDE EXIT? SCOOTER ENTRY?

What’s clear, however, is that if St. Paul goes Lime as Minneapolis goes blue, the days of bike-sharing connections between the cities could be in jeopardy.

Nice Ride has permits to operate roughly 50 docks in St. Paul — about a fourth of its 200 existing stations — but the nonprofit is not under a contractual obligation with the city to do so.

“I think they’ll work it out,” said Andy Singer, a member of the St. Paul Bicycle Coalition. “Seattle has three different vendors competing. There will be some inter-operability. Or, when you get to city borders, maybe you’ll have to change bikes. I’m not worried about it. It would be nice if everything was one system, and St. Paul and Minneapolis had coordinated with each other, but just because of speed and pressures, that didn’t happen.”

How Minneapolis and St. Paul will treat each other’s competing bike-share services remains to be seen, but Nice Ride Motivate Minnesota and LimeBike aren’t the only players in town.

On Tuesday, some 200 electric scooters arrived in downtown Minneapolis and downtown St. Paul, as well as a few other neighborhoods in the two cities.

Related Articles Sept. 30 is last day for public comment on Pigs Eye Lake makeover

Staffers at MPR’s music stations The Current and Classical MPR vote to unionize

St. Paul woman sentenced for manslaughter in man’s death; murder charge dismissed

Ford Foundation grants $2.5 million to St. Paul’s Penumbra Theatre, a record for the Black arts organization

With new shops and street improvements, Saturday’s ‘Rice and LarpenTOUR’ showcases three cities The Bird scooters are available for lease by the minute through a smartphone application. Minneapolis is in the process of crafting a low-powered vehicle ordinance that would regulate the scooters, while St. Paul has ordered the company to leave town.

“My constituents would appreciate a new mode of transportation, and scooters are a fun one, but we also have to protect our right-of-way,” said St. Paul City Council member Rebecca Noecker, who represents downtown. “I think it’s important for everybody to play by the rules. I don’t think it’s a great way to start a relationship with a city you hope to eventually land in — pun intended.”