Concord, unlike Manchester, is ranked among five bicycle-friendly communities in New Hampshire, according to the League of American Bicyclists. But the Queen City pulled ahead of the capital in one regard last week, when it got rolling with a new bike-share program.
That raised the question of whether Concord, with its smaller population, could support a bike share of its own.
Turns out, the concept is already proven to some degree. Tim Farmer, the owner of S&W Sports and co-founder of the Central New Hampshire Bicycling Coalition, said about five years ago the coalition donated some used bikes to St. Paul’s School for the students to ride into the city.
Shortly thereafter, NHTI got on board with its own student-only program, he said, and he’s heard of a third setup for state employees traveling between buildings on Hazen Drive.
And since Portsmouth and Hanover already have their own bike shares through the same company that Manchester used, Zagster, Concord certainly wouldn’t be the smallest community if it were to implement a citywide program.
Farmer said he was just recently in Portsmouth and noticed a bike-share station near the parking garage for the first time. He said he made a mental note that he’d try it out the next time.
“Maybe I’m a little bit more of an avid cyclist than the standard 51-year-old, but certainly 20-somethings and 30-somethings, I think they would grab onto this and use it in Concord,” he said.
Carol Gayman, who spearheaded the Manchester effort, said it took her 20 months between the day she first had the idea and the day Mayor Ted Gatsas went for an inaugural ride. She was originally trying to find a good way for students at UNH-Manchester to get to the YMCA, where they have a free membership.
Zagster requires a minimum of six stations – at $9,000 apiece – and 30 bikes to launch, she said. Finding private companies to finance the stations before they existed was the hardest part, she said, but already since the program launched a week ago, she’s seen more interest. One of the perks for sponsors is that they get their logo displayed prominently on the bike’s front basket.
Each Zagster program can set its own costs, she said, and Manchester’s is $2 an hour, with the first hour free for members who pay $30 a year.
“I think Concord’s ideal for it because you’ve redone your whole Main Street, and there are places to put racks because you’ve got those really wide sidewalks,” Gayman said, noting that the stations are 22 feet long by 6 feet wide, and suitable locations weren’t easy to find.
Cycling advocates in Concord said they’ve got their eyes on the Manchester program, but there are still some doubts about how it might work here.
Craig Tufts, co-chairman of a Concord bike and pedestrian committee, said Concord is smaller than Manchester in area and density, which makes it generally more walkable. And while the traverse between the Heights and downtown is “the perfect distance for a bike share,” it takes riders through “a major weak link in the biking network” in Loudon Road and the area of Exit 14, he said.
“I don’t think many people will be comfortable riding from the Heights to downtown until the infrastructure gets better. The Heights in general is scary for biking for most people,” he said.
Dick Lemieux, another member of the same committee, said he had doubts about whether the demand was there.
“Anybody who wants to ride a bike in Concord probably owns one, and if they don’t, there are ways you can get pretty cheap bikes,” he said.
He also had the same concern about riding on Loudon Road: “I’ve been bicycling almost 50 years at an enthusiast level, and I won’t go on Loudon Road.”
Even still, it isn’t too hard to imagine shared bicycles seeing use up and down the new-look Main Street, especially by visitors who might access bike racks near their hotel or parking garage.
“There’s no better way to immerse yourself in a culture or an area than from the seat of a bike,” Farmer said.
More information about Manchester’s bike share can be found at bike.zagster.com/manchester.
(Nick Reid can be reached at 369-3325, nreid@cmonitor.com or on Twitter at
@NickBReid.)