Bikes, bikes, bikes everywhere bikes
City will soon give a whole new meaning to (pedal) power to Kelowna people
About 1,000 bicycles-for-rent could be positioned around Kelowna this spring.
City council will today consider a pitch from a for-profit company called Dropbike to introduce Kelowna’s first bike-sharing system.
“Dropbike is a sustainable company that requires no subsidies to get started,” reads part of the company’s promotional literature.
Council is being asked to approve an 18-month pilot with Dropbike, with between 500 and 1,000 bikes scattered around town.
For a rental fee said to be about $1 an hour, people use their smartphone to unlock a bike and pedal off.
They can return it to any one of many drop stations, which are fairly simple structures attached to streetlamps or other municipal infrastructure. The system eliminates the need for costly docking stations, which have proven to be an impediment to the growth of bike-sharing systems in other cities.
“A new type of bikeshare, commonly referred to as deckles bikeshare, has enabled operators to shed costs and, in doing so, positions bikeshare as a profitable business,” reads part of a staff report to council.
A real-time monitoring system that uses Bluetooth and GPS technology allows for any bikes left in an “inappropriate location” to be quickly retrieved by Dropbike staff.
Dropbike is based in Toronto and currently has operations in several Canadian cities.