At the Fort Collins Bike Share unveiling. From left to right: Stacy Sebeczek of the Fort Collins Bike Share; Darin Atteberry, the City Manager; Wade Troxell, Mayor; Bob Overbeck, City Council; Ross Cunniff, City Council; Nate Taber, head of Zagster Marketing.
The Zagster based bike share program was officially unveiled today at the Downtown Transit Center. After a few words from Stacy Sebeczek from the Bike Fort Collins side of Bike Share, and then Wade Troxell (mayor) and Darin Atteberry (city manager), the whole group headed out for an inaugural ride.
Cutting the ribbon.
The way the Zagster system works is that you pay for a membership (for a day – $7, a week – $15, or a year – $60) and then you can check as many bikes out as you want for 30 minutes (or less) at a time and you won’t be charged another cent. If you need a bike for longer than that, then you’ll start to accrue a $2/hour fee (not including that first half hour that was free) with a maximum charge of $18 per day.
You have to use a smart phone to check out a bike, but if you don’t have one, don’t sweat it. You can still check out bikes from The Kiosk (which is basically the same thing as the old Bike Library in the Downtown Transit Center) without a smart phone. The Kiosk will be manned with folks who can help you use the Zagster system, as well as help you with directions to wherever you need to go.
Speaking of the old bike library… that has essentially been folded into this program. So you can no longer reserve a bike in advance. And I’m not so sure you can check a bike helmet out when you check a bike out. But what we lost in those features we’ve balanced with the fact that we now have multiple stations where you can pick up or drop off a bike.
Current Bike Share Map – not including the station at the Gardens on Spring Creek. (from the Zagster site)
There are several bike share stations already set up with more in the pipeline to be unveiled soon. So if you’re not already receiving Momentum eMagazine from FC Bikes, now would be a good time to sign up so that you’ll receive updates as new stations come online. (Sign up in the box to the upper right on the FC Bikes page.)
Here’s a short video from today’s inaugural ride.