The City of Shelbyville’s new Bike Share program is ready to roll.

On Thursday at Blue River Memorial Park, the Shelbyville Parks and Recreation Department held a ribbon-cutting ceremony to celebrate the arrival of the new fleet of bicycles.

“I want to thank everybody for the support,” said Shelbyville Mayor Tom DeBaun. “Over the last several years, we have tried to increase accessibility in our parks. Bicycle opportunities like this are the purest form of alternative transportation.

“And we talk about being able to provide transportation other than vehicles, so for those people that don’t have a vehicle this is a great opportunity for them to get from point A to Point B. It also promotes tourism and it brings notability to our community.”

The parks department has established three docking stations that will hold a total of 15 bicycles. The docking stations are near the main shelter house at Blue River Memorial Park, near the Mainstreet Shelbyville office in downtown Shelbyville and at the trailhead building at the N. Harrison St. bridge.

There is no cost to check out a bicycle. Through an app accessible via smartphones, riders must fill out their name, have a valid credit card on file and sign a waiver form accepting responsibility for the bicycle’s return. Once that is complete, the docking station will unlock the bicycle for use.

Bicycles, which are numbered and monitored by the parks department, can be returned to any of the three docking stations now in use. All three docking stations are near the city’s expansive trails system that is still growing.

“I am super excited,” said parks department director Trisha Tackett. “This has been worked on for months. This is not something that happened in the last two months or the last five months. This is something that has been going on for a little bit.”

The parks department will allow the bicycles to be rented from 5 a.m. to 8 p.m. daily until the bicycles are stored away for the winter months.

“This is going to be a wonderful thing for the trails and just for downtown,” continued Tackett.

The Bike Share program was created through a partnership with the Shelby County Tourism and Visitors Bureau, Blue River Community Foundation, Duke Energy, and Major Health Partners Foundation.

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