Should SoBi be saved? CBC Asks Coun. Nann and SoBi rider Zoe Branigan-Pipe
Join our live interview on Monday at noon on Facebook; send us your questions and comments
SoBi, Hamilton's popular bike-sharing program, ends Monday. This is thanks, in part, to a decision made late Wednesday by the city to not fund the program now that its owner, Uber, has pulled out.
The decision was immediately met with disappointment from many of the thousands of SoBi users in the city, including teacher Zoe Branigan-Pipe, who said on Twitter, "This actually made me feel sick to my stomach. Heartbroken."
Branigan-Pipe will be a guest on CBC Hamilton's Facebook Live Monday at noon to share her experiences using SoBi in the city and tell us what the program's cancellation means to her.
She'll be joined by Ward 3 Coun. Nrinder Nann, who introduced a plan at a council meeting Wednesday to use up to $400,000 from the capital budgets of Wards 1, 2 and 3 to fund the program until the end of the year. That plan failed.
The bike share program launched in 2015, and in 2018, original operator Social Bicycles LLC became Jump Mobility. Uber bought Jump that same year.
Earlier this month, Jump was acquired by Lime, a company that runs e-scooter programs in numerous cities. Uber and the city had just signed a one-year agreement in February, but on May 15, the company wrote the city to say it would pull out on June 1.
Join our Facebook Live on Monday at noon with Nann and Branigan-Pipe. They'll talk with the CBC's Conrad Collaco and take your questions and comments about Sobi's cancellation.
Let us know what you think in the box below, the comments section on this page, by email at Hamilton@cbc.ca or on Twitter, Facebook or Instagram.