If at First You Don’t Succeed . . .
Lansing’s first bike-share program has been placed on hold – for now.
Last year, we wrote about a number of bike share programs underway throughout Michigan. Unfortunately, we recently learned that one of them will be placed on hold for the time being. The program in question? The Capital Community Bike Share in downtown Lansing.
As we mentioned in an earlier blog post, this bike share program was the first municipally sponsored program of its type in the state of Michigan. It started with twenty bicycles and four stations spread throughout the downtown area. The City of Lansing, Ingham County Land Bank, and Tri-County Bicycle Association partnered with A2B Bikeshare based in Ann Arbor. The program launched in 2013, with plans to continue and expand in 2014. Sadly, this did not come to fruition. The program halted once winter arrived in 2013, with plans to relaunch in the spring of the following year. While the program did start up again, there were a number of setbacks, many of them due to technological and mechanical issues.
While it did not work out this time around, it doesn’t look like the organizations involved are giving up hope quite yet. They are determined to bring a successful bike share program to the Lansing area. This first attempt will give the groups involved the ability to assess exactly what went wrong (and what worked well!), hopefully giving them a head-start on future programs. Although there are other Michigan bike share programs, we look forward to seeing what the next version of a Lansing area bike share program may look like!
