Bike-sharing ready to roll
CLINTON — Using an Iowa State University-based startup company, Clinton will soon have its own bicycle-sharing program.
Cygnet Bike Share of Ames will provide the city with 20 bicycles that will be available for residents to rent and ride around to various points of interest in the city. This is the startup company's first official sale of its services, and one that city officials are proud to be a part of.
"This has been in the works since I started in March," Clinton Convention and Visitors Bureau Director Mary Seely said Tuesday. "We'll be able to provide area residents with several different stops and docking stations, and they'll be able to take these bikes and really see our city."
Seely listed several of the docking stations, where the bicycles will be able to be taken from and returned: the intersection of Fifth Avenue South and First Street, Eagle Point Park, the Lyons District, the Lyons Business and Technology Park, in front of the Clinton Area Showboat Theatre, and near Joyce Slough by the Clinton Marina.
With many of the logistical aspects of the project in motion, the bicycles are set to arrive in the Gateway area in mid-August, according to Seely.
One of the logistics still needing to be sorted out, however, is how much it will cost potential bikers to take one of the new bicycles out for a spin. CVB board members are in the process of determining how to charge for the service, wrestling with the idea of implementing hourly rates or perhaps an entire-day rate.
The group is now entertaining the notion of allowing community businesses to sponsor the bike-sharing service, which could promote business exposure while keeping costs for bicyclists lower.
"We're hoping that businesses can see this as an opportunity to support the community, and it could also be a way for the service to start to pay for itself," Seely said. "There are still some things that we need to decide on, but that should all get worked out in the next month or so."
Read the article at clintonherald.com
