NICE RIDE FIVE-YEAR ASSESSMENT & STRATEGIC PLAN THANK YOU PAGE 2 | FIVE-YEAR ASSESSMENT May 7, 2015 Nice Ride staff compiled the following 5-year assessment for a strategic planning session of the Board of Directors held in January 2015. In it, we have attempted to highlight key lessons learned, some from successes and some from mistakes. We also asked our partners to comment on Nice Ride, our impact, and what we can do better. From our perspective, we see in front of us a world of opportunity to build healthier and more vibrant cities and towns. We hope this history will help others seize those opportunities too. The final section is a summary of strategic direction. This section is currently in draft, to be finalized following the Annual Meeting of the Board in April. Bill Dossett Executive Director Nice Ride Minnesota PAGE 3 | FIVE-YEAR ASSESSMENT May 7, 2015 OUR MISSION To enhance the quality of our urban life by providing a convenient, easy-to-use bike sharing program that will provide residents and visitors a healthy, fun, different way to get around town. PAGE 4 | FIVE-YEAR ASSESSMENT May 7, 2015 OUR VISION We see a bike sharing program that will permanently change the way people experience and perceive our city, as well as the Nice Ride will show that the • More efficient movement way they experience and perceive benefits of alternative from place to place transportation. transportation are many and • More opportunities for lasting. For our residents those healthy physical activity Nice Ride will create a more benefits will include: • More interesting personal vibrant city, a place where people • Avoiding vehicular experiences interacting with want to work, live and play. Nice congestion the city Ride will stand as a working • Reducing our carbon • A growing affinity to make example of how our state and footprint other changes in all modes cities create programs that meet • Less dependence on fossil of transportation critical and shared public goals. fuels • A sense of civic pride PAGE 5 | FIVE-YEAR ASSESSMENT May 7, 2015 CONTENTS OUR STORY HOW IT STARTED SERVICE AREA PLANNING, EXPANSION FUNDING, & SYSTEM GROWTH/OPTIMIZATION PUBLIC/PRIVATE PARTNERSHIP FINANCIAL SUSTAINABILITY GETTING FROM EXPERIMENT TO RELIABLE TRANSPORTATION SERVICE Operations Theft & Vandalism Software & Point of Sale Technology Customer Service Call Center Anticipating New Technologies BEYOND BIKE SHARE OPERATIONS Marketing Outreach Equity Initiatives Greater Minnesota North American Bikeshare Association (NABSA) STRATEGIC DIRECTION DRAFT FEBRUARY 2015 MISSION URBAN SYSTEM GOALS GREATER MINNESOTA PROGRAM ORGANIZATIONAL GOALS APPENDICES 2008 Nonprofit Business Plan 2009 Transit for Livable Communities Award 2009 Initial Bike Share Station Location Plan 2010 Phase 2 Map 2010 Phase 2 Plan 2011 Nice Ride on the Northside Report 2012 System Optimization Report 2013 Greater Minnesota Vision Statement 2014 UROC Research on Nice Ride Neighborhood Project 2015 Nice Ride Partner Comments for Strategic Planning PAGE 7 | FIVE-YEAR ASSESSMENT May 7, 2015 OUR STORY Like yellow bike programs around the country, this first attempt ended quickly and did not inspire confidence. The Yellow Bike Coalition did, bring together Saint Paul activists who went on to introduce thousands to active HOW IT transportation through a grassroots initiative now called Cycles for Change. Fortunately, not all bike share programs STARTED are alike. Third-generation systems like Paris’s Vélib addressed first-generation Nice Ride began with a motivated mayor, a problems through the same RFID and million-dollar promise, and a public-funding database technology that controls process designed to make tough decisions access to office buildings. Rather than fast. locking a bike anywhere around the city, users dock bikes in automated In 2008 Mayor RT Rybak told Time Magazine kiosks where other people can find he would bring urban bike share to them and system operators can keep Minneapolis. At the time, bike share was a the bikes pedaling smoothly. When a European amenity for big cities like Paris, rider checks out a bike, the system also France. pairs their rental with their credit card Communal bicycles were not new to the number, increasing user accountability. Minneapolis metro area. In the mid-1990s, “These bikes,” Rybak thought, “would the Yellow Bike Coalition launched a first- be different.” generation bike share system in Saint Paul. Yet many community leaders Yet without a way to track bikes and charge questioned the difference between users, it was not possible to maintain a Rybak’s dream and the Yellow Bikes of reliable bike fleet or create a sustainable the 90s. With several people asking, business model. PAGE 9 | FIVE-YEAR ASSESSMENT May 7, 2015 Soon after, the City of Minneapolis contracted a pro bono basis. Mark Bixby, a physician and BEHIND THE SCENES: In 2008 the with the Loppet Foundation to engage the longtime member of the Loppet Foundation primary business model for bike share community and explore funding Board, and John Munger, Executive Director was a street furniture contract. opportunities. The Loppet Foundation of the Loppet, provided expertise in nonprofit Advertising giants JC Decaux and contracted with Dossett, a former lawyer and governance. Mark would later become chair ClearChannel provided bike share Loppet volunteer. Tasked with preparing the of the Nice Ride Minnesota board. These equipment and maintenance in nation’s first nonprofit bike share business professionals put the organization on a firm exchange for billboard advertising plan, soliciting sponsorship, and applying for footing to solicit a title sponsorship. rights. Mayor Rybak was worried an federal grants, Dossett began the Twin Cities outdoor media company would not Bike Share Project (TCBSP). LESSON LEARNED: Developing a provide the level of investment and TCBSP was a stakeholder group of bike strong brand identity early on gave care a new bike share demanded. advocates, transportation professionals, and potential partners faith in Nice Ride as bike shop owners. The group quickly came a professional organization even before together to consider developing technologies, its official founding. “Didn’t we already try this?” persuading the recommend a target service area, and identify downtown business community was a huge desired elements of a future system. TCBSP challenge. held its first meeting in a space shared by the In late summer 2009 Mayor Rybak hosted a Paddling with a friend in the June 2008, City Midtown Greenway Coalition and Freewheel meeting of business leaders at City Hall to of Lakes Tri-Loppet, Rybak had an epiphany. Midtown Bike Center. The Greenway pitch bike share to private-sector partners. A local nonprofit like the Loppet Foundation Coalition and Freewheel were eager From the very beginning, the Center for could mobilize community energy, draw on supporters of the bike share project at every Prevention at Blue Cross and Blue Shield of support from both public and private sectors, step of development. Minnesota was open to big ideas. Michael and seize opportunities better than Huber, a veteran of Blue Cross’ active living At the same time, a group of downtown government agencies and private companies programs, came to City Hall knowing more professional firms committed to assist TCBSP. alone. Rybak decided that if Minneapolis about bike share than anyone in the room. Dorsey & Whitney law firm, the Duffy & were to have a bike share company, a Huber challenged Nice Ride to create Partners design and branding firm, Roepke nonprofit model would be the key to its something big, with real potential to change Public Relations, the Roundpeg and Mono success. And Bill Dossett, the man paddling the way people think about health and marketing firms, and the Grant Thornton next to Rybak, would be the person to lead it. accounting firm all provided their services on PAGE 10 | FIVE-YEAR ASSESSMENT May 7, 2015 transportation. “Do that,” Huber said, “and toward demonstrating how a concentrated The City Council’s resolution put the TLC Blue Cross will be interested.” investment in non-motorized transportation Board in a difficult position. A panel of infrastructure and programming could quickly transportation and public policy experts, the Mayor Rybak invited Pat Geraghty, then CEO lead to a shift toward active transportation. board was committed to maximizing the of Blue Cross, to a demonstration of the To fulfill this mission, the federal government impact of the limited funds entrusted to Public Bike System Company (PBSC)’s bike gave local nonprofit, Transit for Livable them. The bike share program could be the share equipment. Geraghty examined the Communities (TLC), the authority to select “showcase project” TLC needed to change bikes and stations in development for projects for the Minnesota pilot area. public opinion about non-motorized Montreal’s Bixi program. He kicked the tires transportation, forcing officials to accelerate In December 2008 the Minneapolis City and looked over plans for an 80-station infrastructure projects delayed by red tape. system in Minneapolis. Within days, Geraghty Council applied to the NTPP for $1,750,000. committed to a $1 million title sponsorship If awarded, the City Council pledged to be contingent on Nice Ride’s ability to secure the fiscal agent for a nonprofit bike share public funding for a full-scale launch. owner/operator, that didn’t yet exist. Years earlier, former Congressman Jim Current Mayor Betsy Hodges spoke Oberstar created the Nonmotorized loudest in support of the authorizing Transportation Pilot Program (NTPP) for resolution. Though Councilperson opportunities just like this one. Most Hodges represented a ward outside the federally-funded transportation projects planned bike share service area, she saw involve major construction. They take years bike share as the leading edge of a to bring through the planning, design, and movement to create livable urban spaces. construction phases. Oberstar realized that government procedures intended for major Others on the Council were concerned construction made funding bike and about financial risk to the city if the nonprofit business proved unsustainable.