ValleyBike Share To Restart with New Vendor
For Immediate Release – May 2, 2024
ValleyBike Share To Restart with New VendorNORTHAMPTON – The City of Northampton, as the lead community for the regional ValleyBike Share program, is thrilled to announce that it has selected Drop Mobility as the new vendor and will roll out the program by the end of May.
A year ago, the previous operator for ValleyBike Share, Bewegen, notified Northampton that it was initiating bankruptcy proceedings in its home country, Canada, to dissolve existing contracts with its bike-share communities around the world.
To the extreme disappointment of all the member communities within the ValleyBike Share system, Springfield, West Springfield, Holyoke, Chicopee, Easthampton, Northampton, South Hadley, Amherst, and the University of Massachusetts Amherst, the system had to shut down. In the intervening months, representatives of these communities established an understanding of costs and developed a plan to commit to getting ValleyBike Share back up and running. Following this commitment, Northampton issued an RFP for a new services contract to operate the system. Drop Mobility was selected by the communities for their deep understanding of micro-mobility as an important component of our transportation system and their experience in rescuing and operating e-assist bike shares around the country.
“We are so excited to be able to relaunch this transportation system in the Valley for all communities and we look forward to forging new and expanded partners who will join the system and participate in its success!,” said Carolyn Misch, Director of Planning & Sustainability. “Participating communities have worked hard both in this selection process as well as in engaging our regional legislators to help us brainstorm about funding options for the future.” All communities have found a variety of grants and other one-time sources of funding to relaunch the system and will continue the process of working with regional, state, and federal partners to establish sustainable funding for future years.
Last year Mayor Gina-Louise Sciarra shared, “We are not ending bike share, we are merely severing our contract with the current vendor so that we can pivot toward another operational vendor to provide this important transportation service.” Today, Mayor Sciarra shared, “We are ecstatic that we have found a vendor that shares our commitment to making bike share a successful transportation mode which will further our sustainability goals to encourage options for people to travel and commute. I am so grateful to Director Misch for her tireless commitment to restarting the program and for the collaboration with our partner communities. We look forward to this next phase of ValleyBike Share, and to expanding to more communities.”
"Drop Mobility is excited to work with the communities within the Pioneer Valley to relaunch and expand the ValleyBike Share system, where we plan to both revive existing bikes and equipment and bring in the latest Drop hardware and software solutions,” shared Dipesh Dar, co-founder and COO of Drop Mobility. “Building long-term and sustainable bike share is at the core of what we do, and we are proud to power the next chapter of e-bike share in the Pioneer Valley."
For more information, contact Carolyn Misch at 413-587-1287 or cmisch@northamptonma.gov.
