It’s official.  Nice Ride Minnesota, Bixi and the city of Minneapolis are launching their own bike share program.  This system will be the nation’s first large scale non-profit bike sharing deployment, and this is a pretty big deal in US bike share circles.   The Minneapolis portion of the Twin cities received the necessary key approval by the city council recently, and now it’s safe to say Nice Ride’s dream of having a 3^rd generation bike share system in Minneapolis has been made a reality-the scheme is expected to be available in May 2010.

The pilot system calls for up to 80 solar powered kiosks dispensing up to 1000 bikes.  The kiosks will be centered downtown, uptown, and on the University of Minnesota campus.  According to Nice Ride Minnesota Executive Director, Bill Dossett, the system is designed to promote short rides.  Users can pay an annual fee of $60 ($50 for students) or pay by the ride, and similar to most other 3^rd generation bike share systems, users can unlock bicycles with a key card or credit card.

The project was funded by $1.75 million of the $22 million provided through Minnesota legislation to finance pilot projects that increase non-motorized transportation in Minneapolis and neighboring communities.  The project will also be financed by the $1 million donation from insurance giant Blue Cross Blue Shield, business sponsors, membership fees, and donations from the public.  In fact, CityRyde even contributed to Nice Ride Minnesota earlier in January.

“It’s an enormously huge project,” says Minneapolis mayor R.T. Rybak.  He hopes the system will entice people to make short trips across downtown for lunch or a meeting, reducing traffic congestion.  Fortunately for Rybak, we think his hope will become a reality judging by past bike share systems success.

As many North American cities are exploring the possibility of bike sharing, Nice Ride’s non-profit model will be of particular interest to the planning committees to see if it can be emulated in other cities.