New Miami Beach bike sharing program will include Belle Isle

DecoBikes, the company that plans to place bicycles at rental stations around Miami Beach, will include a kiosk in Belle Isle Park.

The station will be one of more than 100 stations to be installed across the city that will host 1,000 sturdy rental bikes, which can be used for short rides for either a monthly fee or a single rental.

The first stations are supposed to open in February. It’s not clear when the Belle Isle kiosk will be installed, said Scott Diffenderfer, president of the Belle Isle Residents Association and an active member of the city committee that is working on the project.

Thirty stations are supposed to be installed by the end of this month, when the first bikes will be available for short-term rental.

All of the stations are supposed to be finished by spring, including Belle Isle’s. Each will include a rack of self-locking silver-and-blue bikes in a solar-powered kiosk. Around South Beach, stations will be available within roughly a couple of blocks of each other.

The Miami Herald wrote an extensive article on the plan earlier this month.

Rental costs are meant to encourage short commutes — check out a bike, ride to Lincoln Road, put it in another kiosk, and go about your business. A monthly membership will cost $15, and you can sign up online. It will cover an unlimited number of rentals. The first 30 minutes of any rental — enough time to ride from Belle Isle to South Pointe Park, for example — would be free. After that, the fee can reach $6 an hour, depending on total time.

For tourists. short-term rentals and discounted passes will be available. And you can pay at the kiosk by swiping a credit card.

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