Photo: Spencer Gober with a LimeBike.

Belmont residents will soon be able to choose between lime or orange, and it isn’t the type of citrus-flavored water served at Town Hall. Rather, the fruity choice is the colors associated with a pair of bike-sharing companies which will soon be up and running in Belmont.

Walking into the Board of Selectmen’s meeting on Monday, June 11 with a bike owned by San Mateo-based LimeBike – lime green with yellow fenders – Community Development’s Staff Planner Spencer Gober updated the board on the competing firms – the other being Spin located in San Francisco – as they prepare to begin operations in Belmont.

Both companies operates dockless bicycle-sharing systems in several cities and college campuses across the United States, using a mobile app to unlock and use the bikes for a dollar a ride. The Selectmen voted in April to join a regional bicycle-sharing program developed by the Metropolitan Area Planning Council.

The impetus in approving the agreement was to cut vehicle traffic from the neighborhoods to business centers. Gober noted Malden has a similar system in operation since May, generating 250 rides per day with the average distance of a little less than half a mile.

Spenser said both firms will have 17 bikes distributed about town that will roll out in three phases over the summer. The bikes will begin operating in town on Saturday, June 30 with the first rides commencing from the Belmont Media Center in Waverley Square.

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