Within view of the pool, hospital, library and Main Street, Lakin sidewalks now have something in common. Each sport a rack with blue and white bikes making up the city’s budding bike share program, the first of several aimed at smaller communities across the country. Kearny County covered much of the program’s costs through the Blue Cross Blue Shield Pathways grant, a sizable award dedicated to health and activity-centric community programming, with MountainHawk donating to the bike and lock costs to keep community contributions closer to the $6,000 provided by the grant. Bike share programs take different shapes and have different goals in different-sized communities, Hunnicutt said. In larger cities, bike rental may be a quick way for pedestrians to cover ground between other public transit, travel slightly shorter distances or move around town without a car. In small, rural communities, where most everyone owns a car and is perpetually five minutes away from their destination, the main use is for health and exercise, he said.
With free, working bikes constantly at community members’ fingertips, residents are hopefully more likely to ride around town, access trails and spend time outdoors staying active with each other, Hunnicutt said.
(Read more: News – The Garden City Telegram)