NEW ORLEANS – Blue Krewe and the City of New Orleans have announced that Drop Mobility has been selected as the vendor to provide e-assist bikes and software for the relaunch of the city’s “Blue Bikes” bike share program. Blue Krewe is the new, local nonprofit dedicated to bringing bike share back to New Orleans. Drop Mobility, headquartered in Toronto, and serving communities across the U.S. and Canada, works with and supports nonprofit bike share operators, transit agencies and other community stakeholders and municipal leaders who want to bring “sustainable micro-mobility to their constituents.”
“With the limited resources of a new nonprofit, Blue Krewe had to search far and wide for the right vendor to provide the bikes and software for the new Blue Bikes. Not only has Drop offered the best deal for the people of New Orleans, but the structure of the partnership also ensures local control and the long-term commitment from Drop to continuously work with us to improve the system,” said Dan Favre, board member of Blue Krewe and executive director of Bike Easy, the greater New Orleans bicycle education and advocacy organization.
“We believe in enabling communities to build and operate a bike share system that works best for them,” said Dipesh Dar, co-founder and COO of Drop Mobility. “By partnering with cities and municipalities, we are able to create a system that is affordable, reliable, sustainable, and integrated with the existing infrastructure.”
Working together, Blue Krewe, Drop Mobility, Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Louisiana, Bike Easy, the Greater New Orleans Foundation, and the City of New Orleans have developed a path forward to launch a fleet of 500 e-assist bikes by Sept. 1, 2021.
The bikes are being custom fabricated for New Orleans and will feature the familiar Blue Bikes color and brand. Blue Krewe will pay Drop on a fee-for-service model for access to the software while the ultimate cost of the bikes will be dependent upon the success of the system.
“Think of it like a lease-to-own type of situation, “ said Geoff Coats, CEO of Blue Krewe. “This arrangement also allows Blue Krewe to hire locally to directly manage day-to-day operations of Blue Bikes.”
“This partnership with Drop Mobility brings our City significantly closer to restoring bike share to our residents as an affordable transportation option and represents how partnership is a core value of our strategy to deliver a world-class bike-share system,” said Mayor LaToya Cantrell.
“We would not be where we are today without the critical early support we received from the Greater New Orleans Foundation and without the long-term investment in New Orleans by Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Louisiana,” said Coats. “The addition of Drop Mobility means we will be able to return bike share this year. Our hope is then to scale this effort with additional support from local businesses, philanthropic organizations and the community. Donations can be made at //BlueKrewe.org/donate.”
