Undaunted by grey skies and cold temperatures, about a dozen hardy UVM students, faculty and staff helped launch Phase I of Greenride Bikeshare, the first public bikeshare program in Chittenden County, on Thursday by mounting spiffy new bikes – parked at a Bikeshare station on College Street outside the Waterman Building – and riding down the hill to a meet-up at Ben & Jerry’s, where they enjoyed free ice cream and music and listened to speakers that included Burlington major Miro Weinberger.
The Bikeshare program, two years in the making, allows members to pick up a bike from one of 17 stations located in Burlington, South Burlington or Winooski — including five stations on the UVM campus and one at UVM Medical Center — for a quick commute.
In Phase I of the program, 105 bikes are available. The program expects to triple the number of bikes and stations by Phase III in 2021 and extend as far as Shelburne and Essex.
To use the bikes, UVM students, faculty and staff need to join the program and download an app that shows them where bikes are available for pickup and where the nearest station is for a drop-off.
The cost – with a 50 percent discounted for UVM community members – is $25 for a year. There are also options to pay $15 monthly or $2 for one trip.
Information on how the program works and how to register and download the app is available at this website.
More information on the Greenride Bikeshare program is here. The local Bikeshare project team is made up of CATMA, the University of Vermont, Champlain College and the Chittenden County Regional Planning Commission. The program’s title sponsors are Ben & Jerry’s and Seventh Generation. It was designed by the Gotcha Group.
Source: UVM News