Wellesley wasn’t among the more than dozen communities selected to take part in a dockless bike rental system involving the Metropolitan Area Planning Council, but such bicycles have nonetheless started to roll into town.
Ant Bicycle’s signature green bikes were on display at Wellesley Square’s July Jubilation, and a look at the Ant app shows a handful of the borrowable vehicles scattered around Wellesley.
Bikes have been popping up at places like the Wellesley Hills train station and Linden Square.
If you’re not familiar with dockless bikes, here’s the upshot: You download an app on your phone, put in your payment info and then you can locate available bikes, ride them and leave them in a legal spot for the next person to rent (the app uses scanning technology that unlocks the bikes for use). Ant charges $1 per hour, though note there are steep charges if you park a bike illegally or wreck one.
Here’s a look at where bikes were located in Wellesley over the weekend.
Bikes from Ant, LimeBike and others are an alternative to docked bikes, like the Blue Bikes you might see around Boston, that are picked up and left at dedicated bike racks. Ant and other dockless bikes provide convenience by allowing bikes to be left almost anywhere, but have also generated controversy when people dump them in inappropriate places. Communities have confiscated nuisance bikes, and some of dockless bikes have wound up underwater.
Let us know if you’ve given one of these bikes a spin in Wellesley and how it went…
I use these bikes in Boston and in other US cities and they’re great! Docked bikes are not convenient at all and the dockless system is so easy to use. People will get used to having them around and it would be a great asset to the town. Would be nice to have some at Wellesley college for the students to get around Wellesley. as well I would support at dockless system here!