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Next summer, Columbus will see the launch of its first bike share network with over 300 bikes parked at 30 locations in Downtown and nearby neighborhoods. Users of the system will be able to visit any of the stations, borrow a bike to ride and return it to any of the stations.
“BikeShare is a low-cost, 24-hour transit system,” said Columbus Mayor Michael B. Coleman. “We’ve taken big steps toward making Columbus one of the best biking cities in the nation, and I’m excited to add bike sharing to the mix.”
Portland-based Alta Bicycle Share has been selected to bring the system to Columbus in June 2013. The system will utilize an automated swipe card system that will feature single-day uses, three-day passes and yearly memberships. The cards can be purchased at stations or online.
“This program is a fabulous addition for Downtown, and I have no doubt we will see a significant increase in bicycle traffic,” said Cleve Ricksecker, executive director of the Capital Crossroads and the Discovery Special Improvement Districts. “Columbus BikeShare will be a big amenity not only for visitors to Columbus, but for Downtown employees and residents. ”
The 300 bikes that will be a part of the system are three-speed models designed for users over the age of 18. Bikes feature safety lights, a basket for hauling goods, and components to prevent theft. A maintenance team will repair broken bikes and redistribute them to stations throughout the city.
Alta Bicycle Share operates similar systems in Boston, Washington DC and Melbourne, with new systems also rolling out this coming spring in New York City and Portland.
Pricing structures have not yet been announced in Columbus, but the existing systems in Boston and DC charge $5-$7 per day, $12-$15 for a three-day pass, or $75-$85 for annual memberships. Once a pass has been purchased, the costs are then broken down based on time ridden. Any trip under 30 minutes from station to station is free, followed by charges broken down by half-hourly increments.
Columbus City Council is expected to approve legislation on Monday authorizing a one time expenditure of $2.2 million to purchase the bikes, stations and other equipment that will be operated by Alta.
Station locations will be decided this fall through resident and business input, while initial station locations will be centered near Downtown area attractions and employment centers. A map of proposed approximate locations can be found below.
To read more about the concept of bike share systems, click here: Big Ideas: Trending Cycles.
Fantastic! I was in Minneapolis/St. Paul for a few days last month and fell in love with their bike share system – I had no idea we were doing one too! This is great news.
Terrific news!
Do you lock it up on your own when you arrive at your non-terminal destination?
For example, I would like to jump over to the library… Get bike, arrive at library, lock bike in front with my own lock, have library time, get bike, return to terminal…?
I assume that’s how it works…?
Nonetheless, awesome news!
Just found out there is a proposed stop at the library.
Also, my French coworker said that it’s best to take the bikes from station to station, because if someone steals it, and the account is tied to your credit card, they will auto-withdrawal $700 for not returning the bike (at least in Montreal/Paris (he used them in both locations))…
So if that’s the case here, I will most likely be taking the bikes from station to station… Also makes them available to others which I am doing whatever I’m doing.
I was thinking this would be good for office workers at lunch, but taking them station to station might nor be that convenient. Do they have some kind of lock that you can use for something like a lunch break?
Stephen, you really don’t want to lock it in a non docking station if possible. The membership allows you to ride it 30 minutes without charge, but above 30 min there is a charge which gets higher each 1/2 hour it is out. So essentially unless you are just going in and out, you’d be paying for non-riding time. However I have heard of bike shares used at Red Rocks in Colorado where people going to concerts did lock up and pay the overage to be sure a bike was available. It was still less than parking and got them out without the traffic jam. It makes sense at an event like that, but that’s kind of an exception.
Billbix – hopefully people would choose a lunch place near a docking station. There is a mobile app to help people locate a docking station with bikes available and on the flip side, if the docking station is full, it helps locate a station with empty bays. I don’t have all the details, but I think the Alta bikes come with a ulock.
Even for a quick lunch its a great map (that will hopefully be extended in the future). I’d totally grab a bike at CSCC and bike to Gay St. for lunch.
This is so fantastic!
Divide 2.2 million by 300 bikes, and you end up paying $7000 per shitty cruiser bike. No offense, but you cant ride the stations. It’s like blaming the high cost of cars on the gas stations. Station based bike shares have such a huge initial capital investment that they only work in dense urban environments with a high temporary transportation demand. Columbus is not one of those cities. New York, Miami, and DC are, and these projects even stumbled there. We had a low cost bike share program in the short north then NEVER got used. I would be for a program like this that only cost about 400$ to outfit a bike of your choice http://www.facebook.com/viacycle
eh, though… there are population shifts happening. albeit slowly…
there will soon be another 600 residents living downtown.
regardless, i’ll be one person that will use it for sure.
You can’t really base the project on per bike basis. A huge chunk of that money goes towards the infrastructure, which is a one time cost. That’s like say two trains on a one billion dollar light rail system costs $500 million a piece.
My only concern is the 30 minutes of free time alotted. I would rather see an hour. There is not much one can do in less than 30 minutes, not even grab a bite to eat at most places.
It will be interesting to see how this pans out. I’m not sure Columbus has gotten that critical mass of bike riders yet but it is slowly getting there. Amenities like bike sharing will certainly help. Although, I’ve said it before and I’ll keep saying, Columbus won’t have that mass of bike riders until we get dedicated bike lanes in our urban core. I’m speaking of lanes on roads, not our bike paths.
An hour seems much better, but I assume they are thinking a half hour for some revenue purposes.
^^That’s exactly what their thinking.
Your not supposed to hold on to this bike while you eat lunch. You use the bike to get from point a to point b, lock the bike at a new docking station, do you activity, then pick another one up to go back from point b to a. This actually works really well in DC.
Why cant we use a bike share system that eliminates the docks and only costs $800 per bike tops? http://www.facebook.com/viacycle does this. The bike dock system Columbus is trying to implement is overpriced at $7000 and not flexible enough for our cities needs!
Good idea, but it will be a shame if this doesn’t include areas like osu, bexley/main st, and clintonville/worthington.
A lot of those proposed station locations downtown are less than a five minute walk from each other. I doubt downtown has that level of spontaneous bike share traffic or demand to be able to support them all. (Or at least without connections available to the aforementioned areas).
My initial reaction was that this is a no brainer for the SN, but I think downtown is a better testing ground. Aside from rush hour, downtown is fairly tame and most streets are pretty bikeable. I think that the SN will come in time but there is a lot more threat from sidewalk cycling, drunk bar biking, and night traffic on High St than in the downtown.
Is there an optional helmet available at the stations?
@heresthecasey – Station locations being a five minute walk away from each other doesn’t really matter. It’s about placing stations in front of destinations. An urban bus line often stops every two or three blocks (less than a five minute walk from stop to stop) but the intention isn’t to provide bus service for someone riding only two blocks at time.
No one (hopefully) is going to rent and ride a bike two blocks from the Statehouse to Columbus Commons. But the Statehouse and Columbus Commons individually would be ideal places to consider bike rental station locations as they’re high traffic destinations that people could ride from/to from other areas.
@GoBikeColumbus.com – The low cost bike share system you’re referring to was only one station (in front of Tigertree in the Short North) and only 10 bikes. It was barely promoted and just a side project of a few local small business owners who I don’t think ended up spending any time or money on it. I don’t think it’s really an adequate comparison at all to what is being proposed here…