ST. LOUIS It’s been a St. Louis mystery for weeks: Where did all the Lime bikes go?

One nondescript Dogtown alley holds part of the answer to why the dockless rental bikes that launched in the city this spring are now so few and far between.

Hundreds of the green bikes are stacked five high between warehouses in the 5700 block of West Park Avenue like the Land of Misfit Limes. Many have wires hanging, missing seats and broken handles. A peek through a nearby warehouse window shows yet more of the bikes stored out of use.

According to Lime, all the bikes there are damaged and waiting for repairs.

“They are not stashed away gathering dust,” said Adi Raval, a Lime spokesman. “We are not going to throw them away. It’s not some sort of sinister way to remove bikes from the street.”

Raval said Lime was waiting for parts that are expected to arrive in St. Louis next week to fix the bikes. Those that can’t be repaired will be recycled, he said.

The company said the wait for repairs was one reason St. Louis had seen a significant decline in Lime bikes and an increase in motorized scooters on its streets.

The company said that St. Louis did not damage Lime bikes at a significantly higher rate than other cities but that the bikes eventually break from heavy use.

Lime was one of two bike share companies, along with Ofo, allowed to launch in St. Louis April 16 under city regulations. Ofo pulled out of the city in late July just as Lime announced it would begin electric scooter rentals in St. Louis.

That month, scooters from the company’s competitor Bird also began appearing in St. Louis.

By August, the number of dockless rental bikes in the city dipped as motorized scooters surged. Rental bikes dropped from 1,500 in July to 500 in August and 200 in September, according to the city’s traffic division.

By September, the 1,000 scooters on St. Louis streets outnumbered the remaining Lime bikes 5 to 1.

But beyond repairs, Lime said, the change is also driven by demand.

“A lot of folks in St. Louis are more keen to use scooters over bikes for whatever reason, so we are really listening to the community,” Raval said.

City Traffic Commissioner Deanna Venker told the Post-Dispatch last month that about 80,000 scooter rides were taken during August, far more than the 15,000 dockless bike rentals logged.

City regulations that applied to bikes will also apply to scooters, including caps on the total number of rentals, regulations to reduce clutter and a requirement that 20 percent of the fleet be placed in several designated lower-income areas.

So far the city is satisfied with the company’s compliance, Venker said.

Lime officials said that once the bikes were repaired, more would be available for rent in St. Louis.

Still, the shift from bikes to more scooters through Lime and other companies has been seen in several other cities, including San Diego and Charlotte, N.C., according to media reports. The company officially changed its name from Lime Bikes to Lime in May.

If the company focuses on scooters long term, it raises the question: What will happen to its more than 1,000 bikes in the St. Louis area?

In China, huge piles of impounded, abandoned and broken bicycles became a concern in many big cities.

There were no towering piles reported in St. Louis, however, when Chinese bike rental company Ofo pulled out of the city. The company donated 250 of its bikes to St. Louis BWorks, a nonprofit in Soulard. Other bikes were recycled, and some can still be seen ridden by residents throughout the city.

Venker, the city traffic commissioner, said the city was considering more scooter parking areas to adjust to the change from bikes to scooters and is trying to inform scooter riders that they need to wear helmets and not drive on the sidewalk.

“There are an enormous amount of riders that are using them, which tells us it’s a needed form of transportation,” Venker said. “This is a good thing, and we’re willing to be flexible for residents to get a new way to get where they need to go.”

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