A Tulsa bike share program in the works since 2015 shifts into high gear.
Tulsa Bike Share has received nearly 70 resumes for its executive director position. Jennifer Haddaway with INCOG said someone will be hired by mid-July, then they’ll ask vendors for bids on their equipment contract.
"We'll get that done August to September, and then we'll move forward into station placement and programming and hopefully get us set to launch in the spring of 2017," Haddaway said.
Tulsa Bike Share will launch entirely within the IDL with 12 stations and 108 bicycles. they got to see one vendor at Tulsa Young Professionals' recent community redevelopment fair, Street Cred.
"We will open it up to different types of vendors, whether it's station-based or a social bicycle system, to give them a chance to display their product in whatever way that ends up looking like," Haddaway said.
Last year, the gap between revenue and cost was estimated at more than $2 million. Grants and new partners have helped close that.
"Some systems are able to sell advertising and do other ways to try and close the revenue gap as it gets moving. A lot of it will just be us testing it and trying it out for the first year to see what works best here," Haddaway said.
An expansion to areas like Cherry Street, the Gathering Place, Brookside and the University of Tulsa is slated for Tulsa Bike Share’s third year.
