Moscow, UI bike share expected in March

After multiple delays, 50 pedal-assisted electric bicycles are expected to be rolled out in Moscow and the University of Idaho campus in mid-March, according to Rebecca Couch, UI director of parking and transportation services, and Tyler Palmer, Moscow deputy city supervisor of public works and services.

The city and the university will split the cost of a $45,000, one-year Gotcha Mobility dockless bike-rental pilot program.

Gotcha Mobility, a Charleston, S.C.,-based company, was recently acquired for $12 million by Ojo Electric Corp. of Oxnard, Calif.

Palmer said the Gotcha Mobility branding will still continue in Moscow and at UI and it will still be responsible for maintenance, repairs and placement of the bikes.

While March 16 is the anticipated rollout, Palmer said he is “highly cautiously optimistic” about the date because of turmoil in the ride share and micromobility sector in recent years.

Moscow and UI identified 10 hub locations — five on campus and five in the city — for users to return the bicycles. The bikes are not required to be dropped off at the hubs, but there is a fee for not doing so.

The city and university will track the usage of the bikes and hub locations during the pilot program. Those locations and the number of bikes could change based on the data collected.

Those with a UI email address will be able to ride for free for the first 30 minutes. After that, a 10-cents-per-minute charge will be tallied.

Non-UI riders are expected to pay $1 to unlock the bike and 10 cents a minute from the time they start riding.

A Spin dockless bike share program was supposed to be implemented at UI and Moscow in August 2018, but Spin, a bike and scooter share company, announced that July it would not bring its standard bicycles to Moscow because it discontinued its dockless pedal bike system in favor of a scooter share system.

Couch said at the time the university and Spin signed a contract that included a 12-month pilot program with 100 bikes in the 2018 fall semester and 50 to 75 electric scooters in the spring 2019 semester. The city also was moving toward an agreement with Spin.

In December 2018, The Moscow City Council entered into an agreement with UI and Gotcha Mobility for a one-year dockless bike share pilot program that called for 50 Gotcha Mobility bikes for $45,000.

The rollout of the bike share program was expected in the spring of 2019 but was pushed back to August 2019 because Couch said at the time it took a little longer than anticipated to get through the legal aspects of the agreement between the city, university and Gotcha Mobility.Tariffs caused the most recent delay.

Couch said last summer that tariffs the U.S. imposed on China caused Gotcha Mobility to dramatically slow its supply chain to the point it could not commit to a 2019 fall semester launch date. The tariffs caused Gotcha Mobility bike implementation to be delayed across the country, she said. The bike company relies on several bike components from China.

A technical issue with a lock mechanism on the bikes was also discovered and would have delayed the rollout.

Garrett Cabeza can be reached at (208) 883-4631, or by email to gcabeza@dnews.com.