Interview: What Does It Take To Start Your Own Bikeshare?

Photo: Yogo Bikeshare.
Photo: Yogo Bikeshare.

[caption id="" align="alignright" width="373"] The YoGo bikeshare team (Ronnell Elkins, far left). Photo: YoGo[/caption]

Most bikeshare rides taken on U.S. soil happen in a handful of gigantic cities, on systems maintained by big corporations. But at YoGo Bikeshare in Youngstown, Ohio, Ronnell Elkins and his team are building a bespoke micromobility option specifically for his neighbors — and hoping to create a model for other small cities to combat car dependency.

On this episode of The Brake, host Kea Wilson talks with Elkins about what makes this Black-led, family-owned bikeshare stand out, why YoGo's investing only in e-bikes, and what it takes to get a town of 60,000 people on board a revolutionary new transportation mode.

Learn more about YoGo Bikeshare on their website, and tune in below, on Apple Podcasts, or anywhere else you listen.

[protected-iframe id="5189617169343f57214c18478f9bce89" height="150" width="600" /]

ALSO ON STREETSBLOG

Capital Bikeshare Nearly Operationally Profitable

By Angie Schmitt |
A recent US News and World Report article explored the economics of bike sharing — noting that cities weren’t profiting from their new systems. That is hardly news. Few cities expected the popular form of public transportation infrastructure to be a cash cow. More remarkable is the news that Washington, D.C.’s Capital Bikeshare, the country’s […]

Bike-Share and Bike Lanes: The Chicken and Egg Debate

By Angie Schmitt |
Which should come first, good bike infrastructure or bike-share? This is a matter of some debate, and we don’t pretend to have a definitive answer. But we do have some instructive research. While it’s obviously ideal to have bike infrastructure prior to embarking on a bike-share program, many communities, like Chattanooga, Tennessee, and Dayton, Ohio, […]