{"id":5015,"date":"2011-01-26T18:34:48","date_gmt":"2011-01-27T01:34:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.boulderblueline.org\/?p=5015"},"modified":"2011-01-26T18:34:48","modified_gmt":"2011-01-27T01:34:48","slug":"bike-rentals-aimed-at-replacing-car-trips","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.boulderblueline.org\/?p=5015","title":{"rendered":"Bike Rentals Aimed at Replacing Car Trips"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Early cyclists at the corner of 13th and Spruce Streets circa 1890 (Carnegie Library)<\/p><\/div>\n

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B-Cycle plans to start operating in Boulder on May 20, 2011, but before that happens it needs to raise $650,000 in capital, Elizabeth Train, one of Boulder B-Cycle\u2019s three current staff members, disclosed at a PLAN-Boulder forum on January 24.<\/p>\n

At the outset B-Cycle intends to provide 200 sturdy bicycles based at 25 stations in central Boulder from 6th<\/sup> Street to 30th<\/sup> Street for short-term use at a reasonable charge.\u00a0 Customers will be required to buy a membership\u00a0 at $5 per day or $50 per year.\u00a0 After they become members, they may use a bicycle for up to one hour for free and after that at a charge of $4 per half hour. Visa, Mastercard, American Express or B-Cycle cards can be used for payment.<\/p>\n

Train claimed that B-Cycle does not want to compete with bicycle rental shops in Boulder; and she asserted that it won\u2019t, because the rental shops\u2019 rates will be cheaper for the longer periods of time that most tourists would need to use a bicycle, but more expensive for the short stints that they usually would not demand. She said that B-Cycle is aimed at current residents of Boulder, in-commuters, and tourists who may want a bicycle in the central part of the city for short trips. B-Cycle\u2019s time charges will start when a bicycle is removed from a station and end when it is returned to one. Train declared that more than 40 percent of Americans\u2019 auto trips extend over only two miles or less.<\/p>\n

The B-Cycle bicycles will be manufactured by Trek. Each will be durable and equipped with three gears, nearly puncture-proof tires, and a basket capable of holding 20 pounds. They will be very hard to extract from a station unless a valid credit card is used. A customer who fails to return a bicycle will be charged $1,000.<\/p>\n

B-Cycle currently provides equipment and certain services to bike-sharing programs in Minneapolis, Denver, Des Moines, Chicago, Washington, D.C., and Montreal. A for-profit corporation, it is based in Waterloo, Wisconsin. The organizations that actually run the programs in those cities, and will run it in Boulder, are local, non-profit and tax-exempt.<\/p>\n

Train said that Boulder B-Cycle was selected by the city to provide bike-sharing in Boulder because of its response to a request for proposals. The city has either pledged or given $300,000 to Boulder B-Cycle. The initial capital requirement for Boulder B-Cycle is $1.1 million. Boulder B-Cycle expects to raise the additional funds it needs from gifts and grants, sponsorships, advertising, and yearly memberships. She said it is striving for 3,000 yearly members.<\/p>\n

Train reported that the B-Cycle program in Denver had 103,000 trips in its first year, only one stolen bicycle, and only one flat tire.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

B-Cycle plans to start operating in Boulder on May 20, 2011, but before that happens it needs to raise $650,000 in capital, Elizabeth Train, one of Boulder B-Cycle\u2019s three current […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":79,"featured_media":5017,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[236,25],"class_list":["post-5015","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-featured","tag-bicycles","tag-transportation"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.boulderblueline.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5015","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.boulderblueline.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.boulderblueline.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.boulderblueline.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/79"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.boulderblueline.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5015"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/www.boulderblueline.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5015\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5027,"href":"https:\/\/www.boulderblueline.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5015\/revisions\/5027"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.boulderblueline.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/5017"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.boulderblueline.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5015"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.boulderblueline.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5015"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.boulderblueline.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5015"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}