ORBT - Omaha's new Rapid Bus Transit line - is launched this Wednesday, November 18th! We are so excited about the ORBT launch and how it will bolster the Omaha Metro's public transportation network. 

To celebrate the launch of ORBT & to encourage our community to try out this new system, the ORBT busses will be fare free for four months. To help celebrate, we will be offering a limited deal for first month free of a Heartland B-cycle Monthly Pass. To get the deal, head to an ORBT stop this week and chat with one of the awesome volunteers that will be telling people about how to use the the system! Information about Heartland B-cycle & how to make a bike + bus connection will be available at all stations.

There are plans to install Heartland B-cycle stations at select ORBT stops to help make bike + bus connections as seamless as possible. The first ORBT connector station was installed this past week at 10th & Douglas! This station is just next to the ORBT stop and really helps fill in our network in downtown Omaha. The rest of the stations are slated to be installed in the Spring. We will keep you updated on the timeline of new stations and the finalized locations as we get closer to install. Until then, 10th & Douglas is ready for you to use!

In addition to new Heartland B-cycle stations along the ORBT route, we are launched Metro Transit + Heartland B-cycle branded e-bikes to celebrate bike + bus connections! Check out these cool bikes below, that you will be seeing out in the system soon. We want to ensure that e-bikes are available at the new ORBT stations to help make commuting a breeze. 

You can learn more about ORBT at www.rideorbt.com and we are so excited for the future of public transportation in the Omaha Metro! 

Heartland B-cycle is teaming up with micromobility operators across the country on the Roll to the Polls initiative and offering free trips on November 3rd. We believe voting is vital to our democracy and is excited to help ensure transportation access on election day with these free trips. More information about the Roll to the Polls initiative & voting resources can be found at www.rolltothepolls.com.

To take advantage of free trips on November 3rd, you just need to use the promo code 110320 at any Heartland B-cycle kiosk. The kiosk pass includes free 1-hour trips for 24 hours. You can find your polling place at www.votercheck.necvr.ne.gov and plan your trip to the polls today. If you requested a ballot by mail, you can find a drop box location at www.votedouglascounty.com.  A map of all Heartland B-cycle stations can be found on our website or the BCycle App. Roll to the Polls on election day and cast your vote!

Looking for a fun way to explore Omaha this week? "Just Ride" is a social ride seeking to bring awareness to the North Omaha Trail & issues of mobility justice happening this Friday, September 18th at 7pm. The ride starts & ends in Gifford Park (33rd & Cass) and goes through a few neighborhoods on the way to The Union for Contemporary Art in North Omaha. Once at The Union, you will enjoy the new Uplift + Elevate exhibition which features work from painter Kat Wiese and poet Kwame Dawes. After enjoying the art, the ride will head back to where it started in Gifford Park.

To ensure ride accessibility, Heartland B-cycle will be providing free e-bikes for the ride, you just need to sign up in advance. You can find the sign up form on the "Just Ride" Facebook Event. Everybody is welcome & appropriate social distancing will be encouraged throughout the ride. We highly encourage participants to bring masks to wear when social distancing cannot be maintained.

Check out the Facebook event for more information & to sign up to use one of our e-bikes during the ride!

Since we launched our electric pedal-assist bikes in May 2019 they have been an absolute hit! The first month of e-bikes we struggled to keep the bikes charged they were being used so often. Several riders have told us that the e-bikes have changed their commutes and enabled them to use the system more regularly. Not only have many riders told us about all the fun they've been having with e-bikes but our ridership data backs up the e-bike love. The electric pedal-assist bikes get ridden 4 times more often than our classic bikes and on average 60% of trips each month have been taken by e-bikes since their launch.  Due to their success, we have been working hard to make more electric pedal-assist bikes available to our riders!

We are thrilled to announce that we are adding another 70 e-bikes to our fleet in anticipation for our ORBT expansion. We will be adding stations at select ORBT stations to help further connect the Heartland B-cycle system to Omaha's public transportation network. The new e-bikes will help fill in these new stations once they are installed but the bikes will be launched into the system now so users can enjoy the expanded e-bike access. Funding for the ORBT expansion project was provided by Nebraska Environmental Trust and Metro Transit. Download the BCycle App today to locate e-bikes and get excited for increased availability of these popular bikes!

In addition to a large shipment of e-bikes, another exciting thing has been happening around the Heartland B-cycle shop lately. Our shop got an upgrade recently with this rad art installation thanks to the New North Makerhood, Future Forward, and Investors Realty! A huge thank you to The Bike Union and Coffee and the Community Bike Project Omaha for the bikes & bike parts for this project. These nonprofits do amazing work in our community and we appreciated their help bringing this bike wall to life. We think it's pretty amazing and, we know we're biased but, the B-cycle up top is definitely our favorite part.

We hope you get to ride one of the new electric pedal-assist bikes soon- some are already out in the system- and all are welcome to check out the new bike wall outside out shop at 1144 N 11th St. As always, follow us on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter for the latest updates about Heartland B-cycle and we can't wait to see you out there riding.

June brought in warm weather and two new Heartland B-cycle stations perfect for your recreation needs. The stations, which were bought used from other former BCycle systems, were over a year in the making so we are very excited to have them launched. We are pleased to now have stations at Mahoney State Park and Dodge Riverside Golf Club. 

Our station at Mahoney State Park was the first new station to go live. The station is located by the World Herald Cabins and the perfect way to explore the park. The unique placement in a state park is only part of the reason we are so excited about this location. This station is right in the middle between the BikeLNK & Heartland B-cycle systems. While you may not be able to bike share between Omaha and Lincoln just yet, this is a step toward that reality.

The second new station is located at Dodge Riverside Golf Club. Situated just past the Council Bluffs Levee Road Trail & across the street from Harrah's Stir Cove, this is our 7th station in Council Bluffs, Iowa. The station makes it even easier to explore the river as it is located between our Tom Hanafan River's Edge Park and Ameristar stations. Back to the River helped make this station possible and have been integral to making many of our riverside stations possible. If you have every enjoyed biking along the Missouri on a b-cycle, Back to the River helped make that ride possible.

We hope you enjoy these two new stations! We think they will be perfect for summer time adventures and exploring by bike. On the horizon, we have more expansion stations focused on transportation that we have been working on for some time but have seen some significant delays. We are actively working to ensure that our system fulfills the Omaha Metro's transportation needs and will make sure to provide updates on those projects as things become finalized.