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Bike Share ICT Looking To Expand Past Downtown Wichita

Nadya Faulx
/
KMUW/File photo
The bike dock at the Pop-Up Park in downtown Wichita is Bike Share ICT's most popular spot.

Almost a year old, Wichita’s bike share program has found success around the downtown area. Now, it's looking at where to go next.

  

Since launching last May, Bike Share ICT has grown to 21 docking stations-- 20 downtown, and one in Sedgwick County Park -- with 105 bikes in use. The program's more than 4300 members have logged approximately 8500 trips.

Becky Tuttle, chair of the Health and Wellness Coalition of Wichita, says the program has the opportunity to possibly double in size. A grant from Blue Cross Blue Shield of Kansas, one of the program's original sponsors, enables them to buy up to 100 more bikes, though Tuttle says they're not sure how many they'll actually add to the fleet.

“We are in the process right now of really looking at the system," she says, "and trying to figure out how we can most effectively enhance it."

Now that Bike Share ICT has built a network downtown, Tuttle says they’re looking at whether they can expand to other areas of the city—especially those with limited access to public transportation.

“We need to be thinking and really cognizant of that, that it’s not just for recreation, you know, you jump on a bike and you ride around for an hour and then you put the bike back where you got it," she says. "Is there a way that we can also think about connectivity and transportation?”

Tuttle says many community partners have requested bike share docks. The top destinations that don’t have stations yet are Clifton Square and the Dillon's at Douglas and Hillside.

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Follow Nadya Faulx on Twitter @NadyaFaulx.

To contact KMUW News or to send in a news tip, reach us at news@kmuw.org.

Nadya Faulx is KMUW's Digital News Editor and Reporter, which means she splits her time between working on-air and working online, managing news on KMUW.org, Twitter, Facebook and Instagram. She joined KMUW in 2015 after working for a newspaper in western North Dakota. Before that she was a diversity intern at NPR in Washington, D.C.