City Does Not Expect Changes to Hubway Under New Ownership
The company that manages Hubway may be changing ownership, but the City of Boston is not expecting any significant changes to its bike share service.
On Tuesday, Alta Bicycle Share announced a long-rumored acquisition by Bikeshare Holdings. Bikeshare Holdings is a newly formed company funded by the New York ownership group of the real estate developer Related Companies and fitness company Equinox.
Most of Tuesday’s announcement focused on New York City’s troubled Citibike program, which is also owned and operated by Alta. (The Boston Globe has reported that Hubway is on stronger financial footing.) Plans for New York include doubling the size of the bike fleet by 2017, negotiating a new contract with New York City to operate there, and moving Portland, Ore.-based Alta’s headquarters to the Big Apple. Media reports suggest the costs to rent a bike will also increase in New York. Bikeshare Holdings has also hired Jay Walder, a former CEO of New York’s public transit system, to lead Alta.
Boston’s Hubway differs from Citibike and some other bike share programs in that here, the city owns the bikes and equipment, and sets prices for rentals. It pays Alta per bike dock to maintain the system.
Boston is a few months into the first year of a new contract with Alta that began in April. The contract is for one year, but it includes two one-year options to renew. Those options lie with the city, according to a mayoral spokesperson. As such, any changes to the system in the foreseeable future would be in the city’s hands.
Nicole Freedman, the director of the city’s biking program Boston Bikes, told Boston.com:
The City of Boston currently manages the Hubway program, and we’re at the beginning of a three-year contract. We do not anticipate any changes in our operation, and look forward to a productive working relationship with the new owners.
The three other Boston-area communities with Hubway stations—Cambridge, Somerville, and Brookline—launched the program a year later than Boston, and are on separate contracts with Alta. According to Somerville spokesperson Daniel DeMaina, the city’s contract will expire in 2015. DeMaina said the new Alta ownership has been in touch, and that the city expects to enter into a contract similar to Boston’s next year—as it had been planning to do prior to the acquisition. Cambridge also says it does not expect its users will see any changes to the system. Cambridge’s contract with Alta will also expire in 2015, though it has an option to renew the contract under its existing terms, or it could renew under terms similar to Boston’s, according to the city.
Requests for further information on how Alta’s new management plans to approach Hubway have not received a response, and the press release from Alta made just a fleeting mention of the Boston program and other Alta-owned bike share systems. Alta is also behind bike share systems in Washington, D.C., Chicago, Seattle, Toronto, and Melbourne, Australia, among other cities.
Walder, the new Alta CEO, sent a memo to employees Tuesday afternoon that was shared with Boston.com. In the memo, Walder said he would be scheduling “a series of town hall meetings in each system,’’ suggesting he will meet with the Hubway team at some point in the near future. Hubway’s 39 non-management workers recently moved to unionize.
The full memo to workers from Walder is below:
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