Transformative Takeaway: Saving NOLA's Bike Share Program

New Orleans launched their bike share program, Blue Bikes, in 2017 in partnership with a for-profit bike share company called Social Bicycles, beginning with 700 pedal bicycles. Geoff Coats was hired to run the program. 

Soon after, Uber bought out Social Bicycles (which by then had changed its name to Jump) and Blue Bikes flourished: by 2020, the fleet size was upgraded and almost doubled to 1,350 pedal assist e-bikes. But then, the pandemic hit. Uber paused the program, and then spun it off to Lime, a scooter company and competitor.  Lime, using the bikes as leverage, approached the city and asked to replace the bikes with electric scooters.  The city balked, and almost overnight, the bikes disappeared from the city streets, and the bike share program was defunct by June 2020. While this could have been the end of bike sharing in NOLA, Geoff Coats devised a plan to resurrect the program.  He organized with community leaders, organizations, and sponsors and eventually developed a non-profit entity, Blue Krewe to operate Blue Bikes, eventually receiving approval from the city to relaunch as a community-based bike sharing program.  In September 2021, after over a year of New Orleans not having a bike sharing program, Blue Bikes went back online.

Since relaunch, Blue Krewe has overseen over 300-thousand trips, and have refocused the mission of NOLA's bike share program to be more aligned with the city’s mission of providing an affordable and equitable transportation alternative.

We speak with Geoff Coats, CEO of Blue Krewe, about reviving the city's bike share program.