War Eagle Bike Share continues to grow

The War Eagle Bike Share has grown tremendously during its first eighteen months said Director of Parking Services Don Andre said, “[The program has grown] leaps and bounds. We are up to 9,245 members.”

Throughout the short span of the program, Andre said, “We have had 77,907 rides.” A number that rises each day Andre said, “We’re pretty much averaging 300-350 [rides] a day.”

The program has added hubs spread out throughout the Auburn community in the last year and a half. Recently, the city of Auburn has approved the addition of bike hubs around the Auburn community Andre said, “Everywhere there are community centers is the best way to put it.”

“The Auburn Public Library, The Auburn Soccer Complex on Wire Road, The Softball complex on College.” Andre said are a few of the new bike hub locations, “Bailey Park, Bowden Park, Boykin Community Center, Auburn City Hall, and Dean Road Recreation Center.”

The goal in adding more hubs around the Auburn community is to make it more convenient for students to use the bike share program. One example Andre gave was the bike hub at the DJW municipal complex on North Ross Street, “We are now getting a lot of people, since it is now a hub, parking there who live across [the street] in 160 Ross apartment complex who are using that.”

Several of these new bikes hubs do not have the correct bike racks currently Andre said, “Some of them do not have the correct bike racks, and that is what is the city is currently working on getting the correct bike racks.”

“What they [Auburn City Council] are going to do is add the racks with a large loop and they are going to start putting them in these other places.” Andre said about the correct bike racks being installed, “The library, the justice center and city hall all have those already.”

Both the city of Auburn and the University are looking to add e-bikes to the system Andre said, “The city already has one. So we are looking at doing that just to see what we can do.”

“The problem with the e- bikes is the fact that you have to have a charging station to bring the bike back to.” Andre said, “So that limits you to basically how many hubs you can have on campus.”

Andre has a plan to combat this issue, “What we would do is, we would get e- bikes and we would buy spare batteries.”

These spare batteries would limit the need for charging stations at bike hubs Andre said, “The Social Bicycle Network would notify us when the battery goes low. And instead of them having to lock them at certain hubs, you can lock them at any of our hubs and we would go out to that hub and replace the battery in the e- bike.”

As for when e- bikes could be expected on campus Andre said, “We are hoping by sometime in the first part of next year to start doing this.”

The War Eagle Bike Share continues to grow every day as more accounts are made and the daily number of riders increases. Now with the partnership of Gotcha Bike, the company that operates the War Eagle Bike Share, and the Social Bicycles, or SoBi, should continue to grow even more as this partnership brings e- bikes to the War Eagle Bike Share.