Summit County Transportation Manager Carl Miller said locals and visitors used Summit Bike Share for over 17,000 rides this year. That’s about 20% more rides than in 2023.
Miller said new stations by the Park City Hospital and Lincoln Station Apartments on Bitner Road may have helped. The program's most popular station on Park Avenue was also reinstated.
“Also at the transit centers, they provide a really good first and last mile connection for people to be able to use transit and then get on the bike share it get to their final destinations,” Miller said. “Using that in conjunction with the transit really provides opportunity for people not even to really need a vehicle of their own if they don't want one.”
Rider numbers may have been boosted, Miller said, because Summit County took over the program. A Canadian company ran the program for a number of years but went bankrupt. Summit County took over in 2023, inheriting the bike fleet.
Summit County's Active Transportation Planner Senta Beyer said bringing operations in-house has allowed the county to make the program more community-based.
“We've been able to really dissect where our ridership is,” she said. “As we get more affordable housing and more workforce housing here, I think it's an opportunity to really get those folks on bikes, utilizing micro-mobility in conjunction with our great transit system here.”
Program leaders are looking into ways to incentivize locals to use the program. Next year, locals may be able to ride the first 10 minutes for free.
Beyer said the team is also learning from other programs, including a community bike share program in Colorado.
“The We Cycle program in the Roaring Fork Valley actually operates a good portion of their system in the winter months,” she said. “They've had a very successful program since 2013 and we've been reaching out and learning a lot from them. So I wouldn't count it out, because I think it's something that is easily done with the infrastructure that we have in place.”
Summit Bike Share is asking community members to take a survey to give feedback on the program.
