A Midwestern metro is making its sprawling, all-electric bikeshare system free to all residents — and challenging other communities to be more ambitious in their plans to get people in the saddle.
The nonprofit behind Heartland Bikeshare in metro Omaha announced on Sunday that everyone over 16 living within its service area will now get unlimited 60-minute rides for free, with no special surcharge for e-bikes, which make up the entirety of its 400-vehicle fleet. Back-to-back rides are allowed, too, which means an all-day roll isn’t out of the question.
Those vehicles can even be ridden across the Iowa border and into neighboring communities like Council Bluff, making Heartland one of only a handful of multi-state micromobility providers around — and the “Free Rides” program makes it one of the country’s most-affordable systems, too.
Read more about the program — and the rest of today’s news headlines — at the links below.
Economic populism helped vault Trump into power. Could a green version of it take that power back — and what role would transportation play?
It’s untenable, but we might miss the gas tax when it’s gone.
