The Columbus Parks Foundation is shutting down the city’s bike-share program, ColumBike, which will cease operations Nov. 1.
“With sadness, we are announcing that effective Nov. 1, the Columbus Park Foundation will cease operation of the ColumBike, B-Cycle bike sharing program serving Columbus,” said Chip Orben, Columbus Park Foundation president, in a statement. “We tried several different business models to sustain the program and while we had many very loyal riders, it never reached enough rides and sponsors to allow it to be sustainable.”
People can continue to use a ColumBike for free through Oct. 31, foundation officials said.
ColumBike, launched by the foundation in May 2016, has seen declining ridership since its inception, according to previous interviews with parks officials.
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Riders completed 2,967 trips the first year of the program from May to December of 2016. But that number dropped to 2,634 trips for the full 12 months of 2017. During the first seven months of 2018, there were 1,209 bike trips, reflecting further declines, ColumBike statistics show.
The ColumBIKE program costs about $70,000 a year to operate, Mark Jones, director of the Columbus Parks and Recreation Department, told The Republic in a previous interview. Jones referred all questions about ColumBike to the foundation.
The number of bicycle riders who purchased $80 annual memberships has also dropped over the years.
The first year, 79 memberships were purchased. That number fell to 40 in 2017. During the first half of 2018, 15 annual passes were purchased.
In the summer of 2018, the foundation and the city’s parks and recreation department implemented changes, reducing program expenses in an effort to make ColumBIKE more viable long-term while attempting to reverse declining ridership.
As of 2018, all of the money that had been invested in the program was raised privately by the park foundation, with no tax dollars utilized, Jones said in an earlier interview.
Cummins Inc. and Columbus Regional Hospital were among donors who provided at least $200,000 each to launch ColumBike. Another seven sponsors donated $5,000 to $15,000 each.
The ColumBIKE program was designed to emphasize healthy lifestyles, encouraging local workers to hop on a bike at lunch or for visitors to Columbus to sightsee, said former park foundation director April Williams in an earlier interview. Williams led the effort to establish the program, but has since left the foundation.
