Northampton Mayor Gina-Louise Sciarra and Director of Planning and Sustainability Carolyn Misch speak to the return of ValleyBike to the region.
Reminder Publishing photo by Ryan Feyre
NORTHAMPTON — The regional ValleyBike Share Program was officially welcomed back into the region on Aug. 12 during a ribbon cutting ceremony at Pulaski Park in Northampton.
City officials, stakeholders and representatives from Drop Mobility, the new vendor that was chosen to lead the program, were in attendance with the community to officially reopen the program after it lay dormant for the last several months.
“After a year of being paused, we are so excited to relaunch ValleyBike Share here and to be doing it with our new operator that’s advanced us and gotten us to this next chapter of ValleyBike Share,” said Northampton Mayor Gina-Louise Sciarra during her remarks before the ribbon cutting.
Northampton is the lead community for the program.
“ValleyBike serves our region in providing a healthy, equitable and affordable transportation option for residents and visitors across 10 municipalities and the University of Massachusetts Amherst,” Sciarra added.
The official return of ValleyBike comes after the city’s Office of Planning and Sustainability spent the last few months searching for a vendor who can operate the existing bike share system for a three-year contract term. The search was done through a request for proposals process that began late last year.
The official selection of Drop Mobility in April came one year after the ValleyBike Share program halted because Bewegen Inc., the prior vendor, could no longer meet its contract obligations as the program’s main service provider.
According to the city, Drop Mobility was selected as the new vendor for their “deep understanding of micro mobility” as an important component of the region’s transportation system and for their experience in rescuing and operating e-assist bike shares across the country.
Amber Wason, the vice president of growth and innovation for Drop Mobility, told Reminder Publishing that Drop Mobility is a service solutions provider for micro-mobility systems that helps cities all over North America with bringing micro-mobility to their communities.
To start, Wason said there will be around 350 bikes available across the 10 communities, which include West Springfield, Northampton, Amherst, UMass Amherst, Chicopee, Easthampton, Hadley, Holyoke, Springfield and South Hadley.
“That number will grow,” Wason said.
According to Wason and Carolyn Misch, Northampton’s director of Planning and Sustainability, the remaining bikes from Bewegen will continue to be available for people to use, but Drop Mobility also introduced lighter and more nimble bikes that are also available for use.
Misch said that once the old bikes age out of their useful lifespan, Drop will help the city replace those with the new, lighter bikes.
“The Drop bike is lighter, a bit more nimble, and with our docking station solution, there’s less of a cost for expansion,” Wason told Reminder Publishing. “So, we’re able to expand more quickly with the same amount of resources.”
According to Misch, all the communities in the program found grants and other one-time sources of funding to help relaunch the system and they will continue to work with state, regional and federal partners to find sustainable funding for future years.
During her remarks to the public, Misch said that Northampton and Drop are exploring plans for year-round operations for the bikes, which is something the city tried from 2020-2021.
In the past, the program lasted on a seasonal schedule from April to November.
“We really want to explore that in earnest once we really get up and running,” Misch said, of a year-round program. “That’s obviously critical as part of the transportation piece to make sure that there’s a continuous access for folks throughout the year.”
Chicopee Mayor John Vieau also attended the ceremony and spoke about the importance of the bike share program for the region.
“It’s really important that our partnerships with Northampton and the region brought back this bike share for the communities, for those who may not be able to afford a car,” Vieau said. “I think it’s really important that we focus on — as Western Mass. and Pioneer Valley — on the opportunity to use bikes as a primary source for commuting.”
ValleyBike officially started operations in 2018 with five communities and UMass Amherst before it officially expanded. The program then ceased operations at the end of 2022 and beginning of 2023 due to the Bewegen situation.
Misch expressed jubilance for the program’s return with the help of Drop.
“We found a great new partner in Drop Mobility,” she said. “They share our cities and the region’s interest in enhancing the community’s mobility and also sustainable transportation and reaching more residents, so we couldn’t be happier that we found an alignment there.”
The ValleyBike application and the website are both up and running and feature the different prices and plans people can pursue: valleybike.org/.
