New e-bikes will boost university's sustainability efforts

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campus experience 1:45 New e-bikes will boost university's sustainability efforts

By:

Ray Meese

16 Jun 2021 723

A new fleet of pedal-assist e-bikes is giving bike share a boost across the New River Valley. The bike share system features 75 e-bikes stationed at various hubs across Blacksburg, Christiansburg and Virginia Tech. The fleet will grow to 150 bikes in the near future.

In order for us to get more people on bicycles, bikes are just central to that effort. You start pedaling and after a couple of rotations, little motor kicks in and helps it get you up to 20 miles per hour. On June 5th, the bikeshare system relaunched and the 75 bikes that were in the system were replaced with bikes over the summer will be doubling the size of the fleet to a 150 bikes, which will include six new hubs on campus and then some additional hubs in Blacksburg, Ginsburg, and in Montgomery County. In the Climate Action commitment. Goal number nine is to reduce transportation related greenhouse gas emissions by 40% by 2030. And then there's a sub-goal to reduce single occupancy vehicle commuting to campus by 20 percent by 2025. So what we're trying to do to facilitate that is just provide more options to people. And so bikeshare is really just one of the tools in the toolbox, so to speak. New users will need to download the gotcha powered by both apps. Through that app, they'll create an account. At that point they're ready to start reserving bikes. Nationally when bike share systems have transition to the e bikes, there's been an uptick in utilization. So we're very much looking forward to, to seeing that here in the region.

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