Bike Share Is Coming Back

Short-term bike rentals are coming back to New Haven — this time with e‑bikes — thanks to a new agreement inked by the parking authority and a San Francisco-based bike share provider.

Park New Haven’s board approved that professional services agreement with Drop Mobility in March.

The new bike share program is set to begin in New Haven later this summer. Click here to sign up for updates.

It comes more than four years after a previous local bike share effort, run by a New York City-based company called P3 Global Management and funded in part by (controversial) advertisements placed in sidewalk panels around the city, fell apart after two years of operation.

The parking authority, run by former city transit director Doug Hausladen, put out a request for proposals (RFP) last summer seeking a new vendor for a revived program.

Per the agreement OK’d by the parking authority’s board iat its March meeting, that new program will be spearheaded by Drop Mobility, which already runs bike share programs in New Orleans, Tulsa, Colorado Springs, and Kansas City, among other locations, according to its website.

“We are excited. New Haven needs it,” said Devil’s Gear bike shop co-owner Johnny Brehon. ​“New Haven is a bikeable city. Period. It’s micro-mobility. People are coming here and asking, ​‘Where’s your bike share?’ ” Now, at long last, there will be one again.

Brehon also co-runs a separate company called New Haven Bike Share Mechanics LLC. That company, with a total of four employees, will contract with the parking authority and Drop Mobility to maintain and relocate the bike share bikes from station to station, just as they did for the previous local bike share.

This time, that maintenance work will include replacing batteries, as the new bike share is slated to include both e‑bikes and pedal bikes.

Meeting minutes from the parking authority board’s March 25 meeting indicate that the parking authority will use 100 existing ​“conventional” pedal bikes, held over from the previous bike share program, and buy 100 new electronic bikes. 

Brehon said the inclusion of e‑bikes in this new bike share program should contribute to its success. There’s ​“a big push for e‑bikes now,” he said. They’re very popular in other bike share programs across the country, including in New York City. People regularly come in to Devil’s Gear asking about and seeking out e‑bikes.

The March 25 parking authority board meeting minutes and the parking authority’s services agreement with Drop Mobility state that the term for this new bike share program is five years, with two optional renewal terms.

Hausladen told the Independent that the bike share program’s pricing model, and even its name, haven’t been finalized yet. 

He said he should have more info by mid-July, with a hopeful ​“soft launch” of the program by the end of July or August.

He also said that the parking authority and the city’s transportation department will own the bikes this time around, and will be contracting with Drop Mobility to operate the program. While ads paid for the program last time around, that’s not the idea for this version.

The parking authority board meeting minutes identidy three revenue sources for this program: user fees, sponsorships, and ​“direct leasing or marketing.” 

The parking authority-Drop Mobility agreement states that the bike share provider will be compensated for equipment and set up fees, fees for ongoing operations, ​“optional hardware fees,” and revenue sharing.

The first year of the program will see the bike share provider paid no more than $378,500 for equipment and set up fees, no more than $184,000 for ongoing operations, and no more than $221,000 for hardware fees, with subsequent years’ fees still to be negotiated.

“We are excited,” Brehon reiterated. ​“We can’t wait to move forward” with another bike share in New Haven.

Paul Bass contributed to this report.