Nice Ride MN is a hit. The Twin Cities bike share recently celebrated its one year anniversary in June. And in July they started an expansion by adding more stations and bicycles to the network.
We talked with Minneapolis Mayor R.T. Rybak who told us about how they got Nice Ride MN off the ground:
"We were gonna have to build a really big system. So I went to Blue Cross and I said we wanna do this. It's gonna be a major health initiative it's gonna cost $3 million dollars, we need you to put up a million dollars. And they looked at it, and looked at it, and they said 'yes'....I was totally blown away. And then we leveraged another million and a half from a federal grant - and again, this was Oberstar - so we got that $2.5 million."
"But then because it was such a huge success Blue Cross invested another million more and we got [other organizations contributing]."
Of course any public bike share system offers its own unique challenges and is gonna need support from the community to be a success. Thanks to the Bikes Belong Foundation we're able to provide this short snapshot of the Nice Ride MN system, how it works, and where it's headed.
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<p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman">[music]</font> <br></p>
<p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman"><i>Bill Dossett:</i>
[00:10] This is Nice Ride Minnesota. We are a public bike
share system. We started last year with 65 stations just like
this one, and 700 bikes. We are expanding it already, so we’re
going to end up this year with about 116 stations and probably 1200
bikes. </font></p>
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<p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman">[music]</font> <br></p>
<p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman"><i>Bill Dossett:</i>
[00:30] A couple of ways that you can use the system, you can be an
annual subscriber and an annual subscriber gets a key that looks like
this one. With this key you just walk up, stick it right in there,
now you can take this bicycle from this station to any other station
in the system. The other way to use it is a 24 hour subscriber.
A 24 hour subscriber will walk up to the pay station and put in your
credit card and then you’ll have access to the system for 24 hours.
You’ll use these buttons to access the bike. </font></p>
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<p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman"><i>Kate Wolford:</i>
[01:01] Nice Ride came to Minneapolis last year and it has far exceeded
everybody’s expectations. You can go out at lunchtime, hop on
a bike, go across the river to a deli, getting to my meetings downtown
without having to park. It is a phenomenal easy to use system
and the McKnight Foundation now has helped expand it to North Minneapolis
and through a collaborative funders we’re also taking it to the central
corridor, crossing into St. Paul.</font></p>
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<p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman"><i>R.T. Rybak:</i> [01:26]
The location of the Nice Ride bikes was primarily based on where they
could be successful, but we also had some businesses that really wanted
them and now that they’re successful, everybody wants them.
Birchwood was a leader and they’ll be a leader in everything and so
they really wanted to do it right. </font></p>
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<p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman"><i>Tracy Singleton:</i>
[01:41] I was super excited to have the opportunity to have a Nice Ride
kiosk at the café. It makes it that much more open to the street,
it makes it that much more noticeable for people that are driving by,
it’s more pleasant for people who are sitting outside because they
don’t have cars pulling up and car exhaust in their face when they’re
trying to enjoy a really nice meal. I know it’s helped business.
I’ll be outside and I’ll see a couple of people pull up on a Nice
Ride and I’m like so where did you guys bike from? And often
times they bike from downtown and a concierge at a hotel is if they’re
from out of town has said, hey, why don’t you take a nice little ride
up the river, I know a great little spot to stop and have lunch.</font></p>
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<p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman"><i>Bill Dossett:</i>
[02:13] This bicycle has an upright position. It’s got room
for a bag, a cargo space on the front of the bike. It’s got
lights that are always on. But it’s not going to be a fast bike.
This is to make you comfortable going on that one mile, two mile, three
mile trip.</font></p>
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<p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman"><i>Jay Walljasper:</i>
[02:29] You don’t have to worry about it being stolen. You don’t
have to worry about where you’re going to park it. You don’t have
to worry about if it’s raining when you come home. So it just
gives people one more option to get around that isn’t getting in the
car. </font></p>
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<p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman"><i>Tracy Singleton:</i>
[02:40] A lot of people in the neighbourhood use it. I’ve used
it when I’ve had appointments downtown. I know some of my employees
have as well. </font></p>
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<p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman"><i>R.T. Rybak:</i> [02:45]
You got to go big or go home. You can’t put a few around.
You’re hopping on that bike, it’s like a trapeze person, you’re
not going to swing on that trapeze unless you know there’s another
one to grab. You know you’re not going to hop on that bike and
go across town unless you know there’s a place to go. </font></p>
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<p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman">[music]</font> <br></p>
<p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman"><i>Bill Dossett:</i>
[03:07] The highlights for us, one is the bikes are getting used, so
we had 100,000 trips last year starting in June. This year through,
I guess we’re into the second week of July, we’ve had over 80,000
trips taken on the bicycles. There were a lot of people that thought
all these bikes would be damaged or stolen, it just has not happened.
So in our first year we only lost one bicycle, and our total cost for
theft and vandalism were only about $5,000, and that’s for a system
that was out on the street all season long. </font></p>
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<p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman"><i>R.T. Rybak:</i> [03:36]
Ours is up. Washington’s is really taking off, they threw out
their old system and brought in this new one, Denver’s is doing well,
Boston’s about to launch. The upside is it’s going to be easier
to make the case to people. </font> <br></p>
<p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman">[music]</font> <br></p>
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