Articles / Bicycling in Minneapolis: The Nice Ride Bike Share Program

Bill Dossett, executive director of NiceRide Minnesota—the non-profit organization that runs the bikeshare program—recounted the widespread skepticism that greeted the new system? Would bikesharing work outside Europe? Would it work in a low-density city where a high percentage of people already own bikes? Wouldn’t inexperienced riders hurt themselves? Won’t most of the bikes be stolen or vandalized?

But when the signature lime-green bikes were put away for the winter in November 2010, those questions had all been answered. Only one bike was stolen, only one accident reported, no major injuries suffered and less than $5,000 in vandalism, which was far lower than the organization’s projections.

More than 100,000 rides were taken from June to November last year, and Nice Ride operated in the black. (Capital costs were covered by a combination of funding from the Non-Motorized Pilot Program and BlueCross/BlueShield, with smaller grants from beneficiaries like the Minneapolis Convention Center.)

This year the system added 500 more bikes and 51 more stations this summer, expanding outward from the center of Minneapolis and moving into St. Paul. From April to late-September, Nice Ride had logged 172,000 rides, with more than a month to go.

Dossett believes the project’s greatest accomplishment is not the numbers, but the success in getting people to ride. Amy Duncan had not been on a bike since the 1970s but joined Nice Ride to do errands around downtown. “I learned to ride a bike again and 100 percent of my success belongs to Nice Ride,” she enthuses.

The system is free for the first half-hour, a buck-fifty for the next, and rises steeply after that. The idea is to encourage short trips that might otherwise be made by car. You get access to a bike for a yearly ($60), monthly ($30) or daily ($5) pass. Daily passes can be purchased with the swipe of a credit or debit card at any Nice Ride station.

The bikes themselves—elegant in design with an eye-popping lime green color— feature adjustable seats, lights and a rack for carrying a briefcase or shopping bag. The system is particularly popular with out-of-town tourists, downtown office workers, university students and residents of apartment buildings and condos. Many local users may actually own bikes, but find Nice Ride easy to use in certain circumstances, such as when they take transit downtown or the university.

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