Boynton Beach to welcome bike-sharing, maybe trolley
Aim is to get cars off street, especially in growing downtown.
BOYNTON BEACH — The city has vowed to become more pedestrian and ecofriendly for years, and is now beginning to roll out one of the ways it plans to do that. Officials are working on an ordinance to bring in a bike-sharing program that would allow residents and tourists to rent a bicycle and easily zip around town. It could be approved as early as next month.
Boynton Beach would be second in Palm Beach County to offer bike-sharing, behind only West Palm Beach. West Palm uses SkyBike, which has several bike stations sprinkled downtown.
“There is definitely a need for it,” Mayor Steven Grant said. He described it as a “healthy alternative” for transportation.
Boynton is also looking at bringing back a trolley system. The city offered it through the Community Redevelopment Agency years ago but budget cuts brought an end to the amenity in 2010. Pushed by the mayor, the city commission will discuss the trolley at the July 17 meeting.
Grant said it’s a way to get more cars off the road and lessen traffic in the city, which has about $500 million worth of development planned for the downtown area over the next several years.
The city commission approved the first reading of the bike-sharing ordinance earlier this month but sent the staff back with questions regarding how the city would choose which company to use. The ordinance proposed that the program be nonexclusive and that companies be chosen on a first-come, first-served basis. But Vice Mayor Christina Romelus had concerns about multiple vendors and said she would prefer more uniformity.
Boynton is allowing only docked systems to prevent bikes from being left scattered around the city. The bikes would be checked in and out at docking stations and the locations would have to be approved by the city, said Rebecca Harvey, Boynton’s sustainability coordinator.
While the bike program is well on its way to implementation, the trolley is simply in the discussion phase. The CRA offered trolley service with Molly’s Trolley as a pilot program in 2005 and it became a popular community resource.
The CRA board in 2009 considered closing down the trolley system to save $735,000 a year, and ultimately did so in 2010.
If Boynton were to bring a trolley back, Grant would want to start with only a route between the Boynton Beach Mall and the beach because of how crowded the beach parking lot gets.
Delray Beach and West Palm Beach offer trolleys. However, Delray intends to stop the system in the future and replace it with a more environmentally and costfriendly alternative. Like Boynton, Palm Beach Gardens is also talking about a trolley run.