A group of cycling enthusiasts have launched a campaign to make Christchurch New Zealand's first bike share-friendly city.
Director of Nextbike NZ Julian Hulls, which provides adult bicycle lessons and training for drivers on keeping cyclists safe, has helped launch a Pledge Me crowd-funding campaign to get a two year public bike share pilot off the ground in Christchurch.
Nextbike is the provider of bike sharing systems in many cities around the world.
If the Pledge Me campaign reaches its target of $45,000, the amount needed to pay for the installation of the bikes, 30 to 40 bikes will be stationed at three to four key locations around the Christchurch central city.
As is the model overseas, users of the bikes would register their credit card details and pay a one off registration fee of $4. The hired bike comes complete with a helmet and combination lock and rides under half an hour are free.
Hulls said close to 600 cities were now bike share-friendly - up from less than twenty in 2008 when Nextbike was founded.
If the crowd-funding campaign was successful a branding partner, who is yet to be announced, would fund the ongoing operating costs of managing the Christchurch scheme.
Hulls said the bike share model was more flexible than buses and trains operating in the central city and should be seen as "a compliment to existing public transport".
"The buses and trains do a really good job of bringing you in from the suburbs that might be 10, 15 or 20 kms away. The bike share gives you flexibility in the central city," he said.
Hulls said twice as many people cycled in Christchurch than in most other New Zealand cities, with three per cent of trips being made by bike, making it the perfect place to pilot the bike share programme.
"The general public are a little more used to seeing people getting around by bicycle and therefore a little more likely to want to give it a go themselves."
Project manager of the Christchurch pilot, Robert Henderson, said the redevelopment of Christchurch offered the opportunity to make a more sustainable city.
"Bike share works really well when it is integrated with public transport," Henderson said.
"The way the city is at the moment it seems like a great way to connect the bits and pieces," Henderson said.
