The first phase of Baton Rouge’s bikeshare program will launch next summer with 500 bikes and 50 docking stations deployed in downtown, LSU, Southern University and surrounding neighborhoods, the Baton Rouge Area Foundation says.
Details outlining the program’s launch and implementation were released late Wednesday. The foundation says two phases of the rollout are planned, with the latter taking place within the next three years.
That phase, the foundation says, will include the expansion of the program to Mid City and the Baton Rouge Health District, where the region’s health care assets are clustered.
In implementing the program, Baton Rouge joins other U.S. cities in offering alternative modes of transportation to their citizens. The Metro Council recently approved the expansion of the car sharing network Zipcar to downtown Baton Rouge.
“Bikeshare is among transportation options the foundation and its partners are exploring to make it easier to move around in the parish,” BRAF’s Executive Vice President John Spain says in a statement. “Our goal is to roll out stations and bikes within the next 12 months, starting with areas where research shows demand is greatest.”
To check out a bike, Baton Rouge residents can purchase annual memberships or swipe their credit cards at 24-hour bikeshare stations, BRAF says. It is hoped that the program, and others like it, will reduce the number of automobiles on the road, addressing traffic congestion—a major concern among business leaders and a thorn for many residents.
“I have seen the multiple benefits bikeshare brings to a community. Traffic is reduced, people are healthier, and bikeshare prompts cities to improve the infrastructure for biking and walking,” Baton Rouge BikeShare Executive Director Lindsey Gray West says. “Bikeshare will increase livability and mobility in our city.”
The foundation says it hired Toole Design Group, a leading bicycle and pedestrian transportation planning firm, this past spring to write the business plan for launching and sustaining the system in Baton Rouge.
The plan follows the recommendations of a 2015 U.S. Environmental Protection Agency study that determined bike sharing is a feasible program for Baton Rouge.
—Alexandria Burris
