Kansas City's B Cycle bike sharing system wraps up successful first year

KCTV 5 has a wrap up of the first season of Kansas City B Cycle:

The first season of Kansas City's bike-sharing program is wrapping up, and organizers are calling it a resounding success. Now the program is about to get bigger. 

Building the Kansas City B Cycle bikes

From a garage full of volunteers braving the summer heat to the ceremonial first ride, it has been a long trek for supporters of B-cycle, BikeWalkKC's new bike sharing system in downtown.

BikeWalkKC started bike sharing to elevate the profile of bicycling in Kansas City and be a catalyst for more bike lanes, trails and other facilities - benefiting everyone who rides a bike.

Ninety bicycles came rolling into downtown last July to inaugurate B-cycle, a program designed to give people more convenient opportunities to get physical activity while reducing automobile pollution.

Sarah Shipley said convincing a skeptical public to give the bicycle rental program a try was the steepest hill to climb.

But she says all that changed as users got to check out the bicycles available at 12 different rental stations for themselves.

"It was a fantastic first season. We got all the kinks out, even though we started in the hottest summer ever it was a fantastic season," Shipley said.

    

The Kansas City Business Journal also covered the program's first year wrap-up.

Related: Earlier this year, in what appears to be its first-ever non-sarcastic post about bicycling, Tony's Kansas City covered the roll-out of the B Cycle system.

Photos courtesy BikeWalkKC on FlickR.