For Immediate Release – May 25, 2023
ValleyBike Share Will Seek a New Vendor
NORTHAMPTON – Today, the City of Northampton, as the lead community for the regional ValleyBike share program, announced that the main service provider for the program, Bewegen, Inc., can no longer meet the obligations required by its contract. Due to Bewegen, Inc.’s default on the contract, the regional bike share program must seek a new service provider for the program.
Earlier this year, Bewegen notified Northampton that it was initiating bankruptcy proceedings in its home country, Canada, in an effort to dissolve existing contracts with its bike-share communities around the world.
Based on this action, Northampton, on behalf of all eight bike share communities, which include Springfield, West Springfield, Holyoke, Chicopee, Easthampton, Northampton, South Hadley, Amherst, and the University of Massachusetts Amherst, attempted to renegotiate a short-term contract so that the system could reopen for users this summer. However, it is now clear that this would not guarantee a stable or sustainable solution, and such a tentative measure would put the system at too great a risk to pursue.
“We know that bike share is a critical component of our transportation system in the Valley for all communities, and we want to ensure that we take steps to guarantee a long and uninterrupted service for our residents,” said Carolyn Misch, Director of Planning & Sustainability. “Participating communities agreed that the best way forward would be to open a competitive procurement process to select a bike share partner with more financial stability and better terms for our communities.”
Mayor Gina-Louise Sciarra further emphasized: “ValleyBike will be back. We need to find a partner that can reliably provide this important transportation service for Northampton and the coalition communities. By ending this relationship with Bewegen, we can now focus on finding the best operational partner to help us restart the program, and restructure it for long-term success.”
For more information, contact Carolyn Misch at 413-587-1287 or cmisch@northamptonma.gov.