Companies striving to bring bike share program to Fayetteville, UA

Emily Voight stops for a cup of coffee and a pastry Friday at the Bike NWA Energizer Station set up on the Razorback Greenway at Arsaga’s at The Depot in Fayetteville. Bike NWA was celebrating Bike to Work Day with stations along the Razorback Greenway. May is National Bike Month, sponsored by the League of American Bicyclists, and Friday was National Bike to Work Day. The events are intended to promote the benefits of bicycling and encourage more people to give bicycling a try. Fayetteville and University of Arkansas are partnering to develop a bike share program for the city.
Emily Voight stops for a cup of coffee and a pastry Friday at the Bike NWA Energizer Station set up on the Razorback Greenway at Arsaga’s at The Depot in Fayetteville. Bike NWA was celebrating Bike to Work Day with stations along the Razorback Greenway. May is National Bike Month, sponsored by the League of American Bicyclists, and Friday was National Bike to Work Day. The events are intended to promote the benefits of bicycling and encourage more people to give bicycling a try. Fayetteville and University of Arkansas are partnering to develop a bike share program for the city.

FAYETTEVILLE -- More people could get around campus and all over town on two wheels once a selection committee awards a contract to one of the burgeoning bike share companies in the world.

Bids for a bike share program closed Thursday. The University of Arkansas, Fayetteville and the city collaborated on the specifications for the contract. Companies will pitch their ideas to a committee of university and city officials, and an agreement could be in place by June.

The bids mark the latest turn in the road to bringing a bicycle sharing program to the city. The effort began in earnest about three years ago, said Dane Eifling, joint bicycle coordinator for the city and university. A program could roll out before the fall school semester begins, he said.

Innovations in technology, especially since last fall, have dramatically changed the bike share landscape, advocates say. Dockless programs, such as ones in Dallas, San Diego and Melbourne, Australia, give users freedom to drop bikes off at just about any bike rack, rather than the specially made stations associated with a docked program.

Bids

The following companies submitted proposals for UA and city officials to consider to start a bike share program in Fayetteville:

• Gotcha Bike - gotchabike.com

• LimeBike - limebike.com

• ofo - ofo.com

• VeoRide - veoride.com

Source: Staff report

Dockless programs also cost a host, such as a city or university, little to no money. Bike share companies usually get their money from users, sponsorships and revenue from advertisements on the bikes and within the related app.

Companies charge varying rates depending on the city and type of bike. Prices range from $1 or $2 per 30 minutes of use, generally, with overtime fees attributed for keeping the bike too long.

The agreement between the bike share company, university and city will be for one year, renewable up to seven years. Other cities and universities in Northwest Arkansas could join. Initial implementation would involve at least 300 bicycles, which could be ridden on campus and anywhere else in the city.

The university has had a program for a number of years refurbishing abandoned, impounded bicycles left on campus and making them available to students. The city also allows users to rent bicycles to ride on the trails near Lake Fayetteville for $12 an hour.

What's proposed is a vastly different idea from those two programs. Each bicycle would be equipped with a GPS system tracking its location. Users would unlock the bikes with their phones through an app. The app also would keep a credit card on file, and users have to agree to certain terms, such as not destroying or damaging the bicycle.

Also built into the contract is a way to keep bicycles from getting strewn about city streets. Certain locations pinpointed with GPS technology would serve as drop-off points, said Matt Mihalevich, trails coordinator with the city. A sign or paint on the road would indicate the locations. A credit card would continue to be charged until the bike is returned.

City and university officials tried to learn from other communities and use the knowledge when writing the terms of an agreement, said Adam Waddell, associate director of the university's transit program.

"We want everybody to have access to it, and for it to be available," he said. "We also don't need it to be a littering type of problem, either."

For example, multiple bike share companies operate largely unregulated in Dallas. The result has been people leaving bikes anywhere and everywhere, according to multiple news outlets. Social media accounts have been created to show the different creative ways in which the colorful bikes pile up on the streets.

Getting a bike share program in Fayetteville was put on hold for a few reasons, according to those involved. The original intent was to develop a regional program, which proved to be a daunting task. Also, Eifling left for a yearlong deployment to Djibouti, East Africa, with the Navy Reserve. He returned this month.

Officials with the Northwest Arkansas Regional Planning Commission and nonprofit bicycling advocacy group BikeNWA were ready to help put together a program last year, but with the proliferation of dockless programs nationally, decided it best to hold off, said Elizabeth Bowen project manager with the commission.

"We stepped back and said, 'Well, maybe we need to see what they're going to offer and how those are being implemented in some of the larger cities,'" she said.

The Regional Planning Commission is not involved in the current proposal, but would be happy to help if multiple cities reach out, Bowen said.

John Brown University and the city of Siloam Springs could join Fayetteville and the University of Arkansas in developing a bike share program.

Siloam Springs began exploring the concept early this year but couldn't finalize an agreement with a vendor, City Administrator Phillip Patterson said. The city has garnered some interest for a small-scale dockless program of about 100 bikes and hopes to roll something out by fall, he said.

"It's a new, emerging business model," Patterson said.

The invention of different classes of electronic bicycles, or e-bikes, also has added to the mix of possibilities for a share program.

A law enacted last year creates three classifications for e-bikes and dictates where they can travel. The first two classifications are bikes with electric motors that assist with pedaling or help propel the bike forward. Those bikes are allowed wherever bicycles are allowed to travel, such as trails.

A third classification involving heavier motors and faster speeds keeps those bikes on roads exclusively.

E-bike specifications are included in the agreement with Fayetteville as a way to encourage more users to take advantage of the system, Waddell said. Someone who's not inclined to take on the hilly terrain on campus or throughout the city might do so if they can get a little boost, he said.

"I think that's a big plus," Waddell said. "We want to get people out and active, but with the terrain we deal with, we might convince more people to use them if they know if it's not just you on your own."

NW News on 05/20/2018

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