NORTHAMPTON — After halting operations several months ago, the ValleyBike Share program may make its return in April.
According to a request for proposals from Northampton’s Office of Planning and Sustainability, the city is seeking sealed proposals from vendors who can operate the existing bike share system for a three-year contract term.
The RFP comes months after ValleyBike Share program officially halted in May when the city of Northampton — the lead community of the program — announced that Bewegen Inc. could no longer meet its contract obligations as the program’s main service provider.
Northampton attempted to renegotiate a short-term contract with Bewegen in early 2023 after the provider notified the city that it was initiating bankruptcy proceedings in its home country of Canada in hopes of dissolving existing contracts with its bike share communities around the world. The hope was to reopen for its users this summer.
That, however, did not happen.
“We know that bike share is a critical component of our transportation system in the valley for all communities, and we want to ensure that we take steps to guarantee a long and uninterrupted service for our residents,” said Carolyn Misch, the city’s director of planning and sustainability, last summer. “Participating communities agreed that the best way forward would be to open a competitive procurement process to select a bike share partner with more financial stability and better terms for our communities.”
In December, the city of Northampton has sent out an RFP for a new vendor to restart the ValleyBike Share program in the 10 communities where the program exists.
“The purpose of this RFP is to select a bike-sharing vendor to enable the city of Northampton, on behalf of all 10 municipalities, including the University of Massachusetts Amherst, to restart its successful bike-share system,” reads the RFP. “The owner seeks to select a vendor who can maintain, develop and enhance the ValleyBike Share program restarting in the spring of 2024 and beyond using our existing assets, including 750 e-assist bicycles and 79 station locations with dock/charge points.”
The RFP states that the rollout of the selected vendor’s ValleyBike Share operations will be “not later” than April 10 and “completed” by April 30. The contract term estimate with the selected vendor is April 1, 2024 to April 1, 2027.
Vendors have until Jan. 31 at 1 p.m. to submit their proposals and a contract is estimated to be rewarded to a selected vendor on March 15.
Currently, Northampton, Amherst, UMass Amherst, Chicopee, Easthampton, Hadley, Holyoke, Springfield, South Hadley and West Springfield all participate in the ValleyBike Share program, which officially began in the region in 2018.
Readers can read the full RFP by visiting the Northampton website at tinyurl.com/murh53p5.
