Clarksville Parks and Recreation closing BCycle stations after 8 years

After eight years, the BCycle stations across Clarksville will be closed.

Clarksville Parks and Recreation Department announced that after careful consideration and evaluation of various factors, including the aging condition of equipment, they will be discontinuing the program.

"We would like to sincerely thank the Clarksville community for their support and participation in the BCycle program over the years," the department press release said. "We remain committed to exploring new ways to serve and contribute to the community in the future."

BCycle came as a way to provide Clarksville with a sustainable and convenient bike-sharing program when it was introduced with two stations at Liberty and McGregor parks in 2016.

It came in part by by a grant from the Clarksville-Montgomery County Community Health Foundation and Clarksville Academy's Challenge Based Learning program for students.

“These students were involved throughout the whole process, from grant writing, managing correspondence with the foundation, to helping assemble the bikes,” Joanne Askew, director of Challenge Based Learning at Clarksville Academy said in 2017about the students involved at the ribbon cutting of the next two BCycle stations. “This was truly what we call cross-curricular content.”

By 2018, the fifth station with 10 bikes had been added at the Foy Recreation Center at Austin Peay State University, allowing students to bike for free at any stations around the city.

In 2019, Clarksville Parks and Recreation celebrated its third anniversary with free 60-minute bike rides for a week.

"Third-year milestones include 9,600 trips that covered almost 65,000 miles and allowed riders to burn 2.5 million calories," announced the Parks and Recreation Department during the anniversary.

However, an analysis made it evident that the current level of ridership is no longer sustainable for the continued operation of the five stations around the city, officials said.

In addition, replacement parts for the bikes and station kiosks are no longer being manufactured as the industry shifts to more e-bikes.

Kenya Anderson is a reporter for The Leaf-Chronicle. She can be contacted at kanderson@gannett.com or on X at kenyaanderson32. Sign up for the Leaf-Chronicle to support local journalism at www.theleafchronicle.com.

This article originally appeared on Clarksville Leaf-Chronicle: Clarksville Parks and Recreation closing BCycle stations after 8 years