The City is asking you to participate in a survey regarding a proposed bike share system. RESPONSES ARE DUE BY FRIDAY, APRIL 3rd.
The request to participate appeared on the City's Facebook page and a number of people provided comments on Facebook. Facebook comments do not count! If you want to weigh in on this issue, you must complete the survey.
You may find the survey difficult to complete, for several reasons. It requires that you provide your age group, ethnicity, and income level. The survey also requires you to choose at least one location for a bike dock--even if you don't want one anywhere.
Bike Share History
Some of the comments on Facebook asked, "didn't we try this before?"
We did a couple of similar things. In 2016, the City got a generous grant for a pilot program to establish a "Bike Library." The grant allowed them to buy a good-sized shed and a bunch of bikes and helmets. People could borrow the bikes for free, for 2 hours, and rent them by the day or hour for longer rides. That program ran, off and on, until 2021. That summer, the City announced that they had been unable to find anyone to run the Bike Library. (I always wonder whether that shed is still full of bikes and helmets.)
In 2018, the City participated in another pilot. This time, a commercial company placed racks full of bikes that people could rent using an app. That program, originally planned to run for a year, lasted only two months. The commercial company decided to end it and removed the bikes. The Golden Transcript published a good article describing that short-lived program.
