Fort Wayne Mayor Tom Henry today launched the City’s first Bike Share effort in partnership with Leadership Fort Wayne and Zagster, Inc.
The City’s new Bike Share program includes 25 cruiser bikes that are available at five downtown locations for riders to checkout for on-demand, local trips (map attached). Anyone can ride by purchasing a day pass or joining with a monthly or annual membership. Rides for members are free for up to an hour, then $3 per hour after. An annual membership can be purchased for $60 and a monthly membership for $15. Riders join the system using a simple app or text messages; instructions are found here: www.zagster.com/fortwayne.
“Hosting a bike sharing system demonstrates that Fort Wayne is a vibrant, healthy and engaged community,” said Mayor Henry. “We’re committed to making Fort Wayne a great place to live, visit and work, and the addition of bike sharing is a great way to enhance our quality of life and keep our community moving in the right direction.”
The 2015 Leadership Fort Wayne class with members of Kathryn Gentz, PJ Thuringer, Willie Lipsey, Scott Sproul, Chris Johnson and Jermaine Jackson, decided to focus their community service efforts on establishing a bike sharing system in Fort Wayne. Leadership Fort Wayne is a program of Greater Fort Wayne Inc. The group researched the topic, talked with various vendors and had dozens of conversations with community leaders to determine interest in the effort. Their work set the stage for the City to invest in the bike share program operated by Zagster, the leading provider of bike sharing systems across the United States.
“Zagster allows mid-sized cities like Fort Wayne the opportunity to have the amenities of major metropolitan areas without the cost and complexity of bigger systems like those in Chicago and New York,” said Kathryn Gentz, Leadership Fort Wayne team member. “We are excited to help bring bike sharing to Fort Wayne and look forward to seeing the system grow.”
The City has committed $45,000 annually in Community Economic Development Income Tax (CEDIT) funds for two years to get the Fort Wayne Bike Share program up and running. During those two years, Leadership Fort Wayne team members and City staff will work to get private sponsors to support and grow the bike share system in Fort Wayne.
“Fort Wayne’s confidence in Zagster is indicative of our company’s expertise in crafting tailored, cost-effective systems that bring the benefits of bike sharing to communities of all types and sizes,” said Timothy Ericson, Zagster co-founder and CEO. “We look forward to seeing what great heights our bike-share partnership can reach in the Summit City.”
As part of the Bike Share Fort Wayne launch, Bicycle Friendly Fort Wayne, a bicycle advocacy group, is hosting a contest for a free year-long membership. Participants are invited to take a selfie on a bike share bike and post the photo to Twitter, Facebook or Instagram using the #fwbikeshare by May 31. The photos will be posted in an album on the Bicycle Friendly Facebook and starting June 1, residents can vote for their favorite photo. Bicycle Friendly Fort Wayne will choose the winner from the 10 photos with the most likes by June 15. Full details are on the Bicycle Friendly Fort Wayne website, www.bffw.org.
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About Zagster: Founded in Philadelphia in 2007 and now headquartered in Cambridge, Mass., Zagster is the leading provider of bike sharing systems across the United States. Zagster is uniquely focused on working with communities across North America to make bike sharing programs available to residents, employees, students and visitors. A unique and highly efficient model allows Zagster to offer services in areas that traditional metropolitan bike sharing system providers can't reach.More information about Zagster’s programs and impact is available at www.zagster.com.
About Leadership Fort Wayne: Leadership Fort Wayne is a program of Greater Fort Wayne Inc and for over 30 years, the program has trained individuals on ways to better understand the community and their collective and individual capacities to drive positive change through leadership and civic engagement.