GOP convention gets a new spin: Free bikes
A bicycle share program planned for the St. Paul event could lead to an ongoing program in the Twin Cities.
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For at least four days this September, a bike-sharing program will return to the Twin Cities -- and this time in a sleek modern form.
Humana, a Fortune 500 health insurer, will be providing 1,000 bicycles to the cities of St. Paul and Minneapolis for community use during the Republican National Convention, and then leaving 75 behind for what it hopes will become a permanent bike-sharing initiative.
Details are to be announced today at a news conference in St. Paul's Rice Park.
The Freewheelin program would offer a high-tech twist on the Yellow Bike program that operated on the honor system in St. Paul in the 1990s. That initiative disappeared as the bikes -- none too hardy to begin with -- were lost to theft and disrepair.
To use a Freewheelin cycle, participants would register with credit cards to ensure that they don't make off with the bikes, which otherwise are expected to be free to use. They then can go online, too, to track how many miles they've logged and calories they've burned.
Humana also is making 1,000 bicycles available to Denver during the Democratic National Convention, in turn giving Denver and the Twin Cities the opportunity to join Washington at the forefront of communal two-wheel initiatives.
In Minneapolis, Casper Hill, a city spokesman, said Thursday that while it was too early to say whether Freewheelin will remain permanently, "we're discussing ways to keep the program going beyond the [convention]."
St. Paul city spokesman Bob Hume could not be reached to comment.
Welcome opportunity
In Washington, SmartBike DC -- due to launch in about two weeks -- has been touted as the first program of its kind in the United States.
Jim Sebastian, the city's pedestrian and bicycling coordinator, said Wednesday that he had never in his years with the city seen the kind of interest being generated by the project -- "locally, nationally, internationally," he said.
The program is being run by Clear Channel Outdoor Holdings Inc., which handles the city's bus-shelter advertising and operates bike-sharing programs in Europe, too. For a $40 annual membership, users in the District of Columbia will have access to bikes stored at computerized racks across the city.
Since late August, Humana has been running a Freewheelin program for its employees at its headquarters in Louisville, Ky.
In the Twin Cities, plans call for racks and kiosks to be installed this summer.
Peggy Lynch, executive director of the Friends of the Parks and Trails of St. Paul and Ramsey County, and an organizer of St. Paul's Yellow Bike program, said that the Twin Cities, with its networks of trails, is an ideal locale for a Freewheelin initiative.
"It's a beautiful time of the year," as well, she said, referring to the convention Sept. 1-4, "a wonderful time to ride around the Twin Cities."
But Lynch wondered: "Are they giving out helmets, too?"
She is hopeful, she added, that the audience is there to make the program permanent. Even with some of the "junk" that the Yellow Bike program had to make do with, Lynch said, "we heard a lot of positive feedback."
Anthony Lonetree • 651-298-1545
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