Division of Parks and Forestry to offer bike rentals at state parks

New Jersey is gearing up to make bike rentals more available to visitors at state parks this summer by reaching out to bicycle businesses to serve as vendors.
The New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection’s Division of Parks and Forestry is currently looking to offer bicycle rentals in Cape May Point State Park, Swartswood State Park and four locations within Delaware and Raritan State Park, which include Lambertville, Titusville, Kingston and Franklin.
“The reason why we want to offer this type of concessions is because we do not have the resources to provide bicycles for the public, but we recognized the need and demand for it,” said Dana Loschiavo, the spokeswoman for the state DEP. “We saw many people running, walking and riding along the canal. It was expressed from our visitors that there is a need to rent bikes.”
In order to receive a concession, which is the exclusive right to rent out bicycles at a certain location, businesses will have to fill out applications and place a bid with the state until May 13, Loschiavo said.
“Whoever bids the highest would receive the business opportunity,” she said.
Concessions operations would run seven days a week from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. during May 23 to Sep. 7, according the state’s specifications.
Businesses must first be pre-approved through an application process, Loschiavo said. The application deadline was initially April 17, but had to be pushed to May 1 as they did not receive any applications for any of the locations beside Cape May Point State Park.
“We are also looking to offer new amenities in parks in order to generate new revenues,” she said.
Dave Buegler, the owner of The Cycle Corner, located at 52 Bridge St. in Frenchtown, N.J., said he heard from a Bull Island Recreation official that the state would like to offer bicycle concessions on its properties, but does not see it making much profit and passed on the bid.
“It’s hard to get enough qualified people down there every single day,” Buegler said.
Between employing new staff, transporting the bicycles, insurance and paying the state, he does not see vendors making much profit, he said.
According to the state’s specifications, vendors would be required to have two employees working at all times and would run out of a mobile trailer within a parking lot.
“It is a nice courtesy to their visitors; whether or not the state took other businesses into account, I’m not sure,” Buegler said. “I know they need money, but do they want to deal with the business model of competing with existing businesses?”
Students had mixed reactions about the usefulness of the bike rentals.
“If I happened to be in one of the parks without my bike, I would most likely rent one from a concession, but I’d prefer to use my own,” said School of Arts and Sciences first-year student Valerie Koppell.
School of Arts and Sciences sophomore Justin Saphirstein said it is unlikely that he would rent a bike.
“I already own one and they are fairly easy to transport, besides I have not ridden a bike since I was 16,” Saphirstein said.
He has no problem with the program since his shop is miles away from the six locations of possible bicycle concessions and he already offers rentals two blocks from the river pass, Buegler said.
“This is a new venture, so we are not sure if we are going to get anyone wanting to do all locations,” Loschiavo said. “We could not anticipate if businesses would be interested or not.”

Comments

1 comments

Cathy

Sat Jul 4 2009 11:07

I think this is a wonderful idea and I hope it becomes a reality. Please keep us posted.

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