When I first moved to Baton Rouge from my rural hometown, one of my biggest initial life adjustments was parking. (What do you mean it’s against the law to park in the grass at my own home?) After a few too many mornings spent circling LSU parking lots, flustered and late, I bought a bicycle—a lime green, single-speed, street-baby that I’d rattle over the root-cracked sidewalks alongside Highland for the rest of undergrad.
Baton Rouge—with its bumper-to-bumper traffic, skimpy parking, growing concerns about emissions, and 33% adult obesity rate—has been trying to make biking a thing for a while. Organizations including Bike Baton Rouge promote two wheels as viable transportation, and the past couple of years have seen more and more bike lanes installed citywide. And now—more bikes to fill them.
On July 18, Baton Rouge launched the state’s first-ever pedal-assist bike share program in partnership with the South Carolina mobility company Gotcha. Locals, visitors, and students of the Capital City will now have access to over 500 bicycles available at fifty mobility hubs throughout the city and on the campuses of LSU and Southern University.
It’s a project that has elicited enthusiasm from all corners of Baton Rouge—made possible with support from citizens, government officials, businesses, health institutions, and the city’s universities—all in an effort to promote bicycling as an affordable, accessible, and healthy transportation option.
Now that I work downtown, the road from my house to the office being significantly farther and less reliable than to campus, it’s been a while since I’ve hopped on my old gal. But, with these continued efforts to make biking available and safe in our city, future morning rides to work don’t seem so far very off.
For now, the Gotcha rack on the corner of Mayflower and St. Joseph promises more convenient access to downtown lunchbreaks—maybe even with the whole Country Roads office in tow. We’ll see y’all out there.
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