Kansas City’s bike share program, Kansas City B-cycle has been a great success since it’s inception in 2012. The program provides bike stations from which users can check-out a bike and use it for short trips around the city. The user can then return the bike to any B-cycle station when they are done with it.
The 5 month inaugural bike share season saw great success and the program built on that success in 2013. Here are some highlights from the annual report for 2012:
- 5,300 total bike rides were taken
- 2,000 people rode B-cycle bikes
- 17,000 miles of total ride distance were logged
- 2.5 miles – average trip length
- 16,000 pounds of carbon offset was achieved
- 685,000 calories were burned by riders.
Kansas City B-cycle is looking to expand the bike share program this year. Rachel Kraus, Communications Coordinator for BikeWalkKC/Kansas City B-cycle, discusses the organization’s efforts to raise funds through crowdfunding:
“The city’s two-season-old public bike system is gearing up for a major expansion in spring 2014. Kansas City B-cycle, Powered by Blue KC, will add at least eight new stations in the Plaza and Westport districts, and hopes to add more in surrounding neighborhoods, bringing the benefits of bike share to new areas of the city. B-cycle is turning to the public, as well as local businesses and institutions, to help it reach its goal as its 2014 season opens. It has launched a campaign on the KC-based civic crowdfunding site Neighbor.ly to collect donations.
“The bike share system — which currently consists of 12 self-service stations in River Market, Downtown, and Crossroads — will add at least eight new stations in the Plaza and Westport as its 2014 season opens in March. The stations will generally be sited along 47th St. and Westport Rd. B-cycle says density and existing bike-friendliness makes these districts a good fit for bike share. It is also pursuing a further six locations in Midtown, Brookside, Waldo, and the 18th and Vine district.
B-cycle says expansion will bring the benefits of bike share with it. In its first two years of operation, the system proved an effective tool for increasing health and reducing environmental impact among its users — across 9,600 trips, users burned 1.2 million calories and saved 28,000 pounds of carbon dioxide emissions. Leaders in other cities with bike share system have touted the transportation alternative’s affordability to users and ability to attract new residents. Individuals can donate on the Kansas City B-cycle page on Neighbor.ly.”
Photo via BikeWalkKC
