This content was originally published by the Longmont Observer and is licensed under a Creative Commons license.
On April 20, 2017, the City of Longmont, Zagster, Inc. and Oskar Blues Brewery & Fooderies partnered to launch a bike share program in Longmont.
After a year, we thought we would check in on how the program is fairing.
According to Phil Greenwald, AICP CTP, transportation planner for the City of Longmont, "In the last year, the City of Longmont Zagster system has seen almost 900 trips (891 as of today) on the bikeshare system. This averages to about 16 trips per week. We currently have almost 500 (497) active members on the system, with 37 percent as repeat riders. Also, 401 members are on the hourly rate plan ($3/hour), one (1) active member is on our monthly plan ($15/month) and 95 members are the annual membership ($60/year)."
According to a presentation given by the City of Longmont, 70% of the bike share users are from Longmont, 17% are from in-state and 13% are out of state users.
Most users, 77.8%, pay the hourly rate. The ages of the majority of the riders are between 22-39 years old. The program, itself, averages 4.56 rides per day.
Zagster is changing its business model this year by "doubling the amount of bikes and allowing riders to end their bikeshare trips at any public bike rack," states Greenwald. This change hopes to increase bike usage and allow more bikes in a wider area of the city.
In addition to Zagster changing its business plan, the City of Longmont will be adding 5-10 additional stations this summer. At present, there are 10 stations throughout the city with 5 bikes per station (on average). This will increase the number of Zagster bikes in Longmont from 50 to 100 sometime in July or August.
Another future change to the program is that the current bikes will be replaced with the new Pace bikes. "We hope to work with Zagster to launch Pace in mid- to late-summer (August-September)," states Greenwald.
"The new bikes allow for more space (fenders and basket) for sponsorship logos as well as the ability to be tracked with GPS units built-in. Currently, the user’s phone provides the location the bike trip was ended. Pace will also be “tethered dockless”, meaning you can lock the Pace bikes anywhere there is a publically-accessible bicycle rack," mentions Greenwald on the difference in the current bikes and the new Pace bikes.
These new changes bring up the question, "Will the price of the program change?" Greenwald says, "The pricing structure may change by eliminating monthly memberships, but will not likely increase."
Currently, membership rates are at follows: $60 for an annual membership, $15 for a monthly membership and $3 for an hourly rate.
Below is a map of current Zagster bike stations and popular bike paths that customers use while riding Zagster bikes:
To find an updated map of Zagster bike station locations visit http://bike.zagster.com/longmont/.
Sergio R. Angeles also contributed to this article.
