By Seth Daniel
Councillor Roy Avellaneda and the bike sharing company oFo are collaborating with the City and community partners to potentially bring the service to Chelsea residents in the near future, pending successful implementation.
Bike sharing has grown in popularity, with HubWay dominating the Boston area. However, the company typically requires significant municipal funding to establish stations, which can consume limited parking spaces in key downtown areas.
Councillor Roy Avellaneda noted that bicycle use in Chelsea has seen a significant increase. As a result, promoting cycling has become one of his key initiatives on the Council. He and City Manager Tom Ambrosino had previously attempted to bring HubWay to Chelsea, but the effort recently stalled and may not have been the best match for the city in the first place.
Then, unexpectedly, a former colleague introduced him to oFo, a company launching its service in Revere next week and already active in Worcester and 16 other countries globally.
The oFo system, he said, appeared to be an ideal solution.
“While there has been an attempt to bring HubWay to Chelsea, they haven’t been overly excited to come,” he said. “This just made perfect sense. To find an alternative to HubWay was very appealing.”
oFo – a name that visually represents a person riding a bike 
– has been present in Chelsea for the past few weeks.
At the annual Ride for REACH, the company provided several signature yellow bikes for participants to use. They have also participated in other promotional events.
What makes the service distinctive is its lack of fixed stations. Bikes are simply locked to racks or other legal locations and left behind when a user finishes. Through a phone app, registered users can find bikes using a GPS map. Once a nearby bike is located, they can scan the QR code on the bike with their phone and begin their ride. Each bike is GPS tracked by the company, and the pricing is significantly more favorable than HubWay.
A typical HubWay rental costs $5 per hour, while an oFo rental is only $1 per hour.
“The biggest plus for me is we can get this off the ground fast,” said Avellaneda. “We have high ridership of bikes now and we can offer a product like this to the residents that is easy and very affordable. It looks like a no-brainer.”
City Manager Tom Ambrosino mentioned that the City is meeting with the company today and found the idea intriguing at first glance.
GreenRoots has also held discussions with oFo, and Director Roseann Bongiovanni described the concept as interesting.
“oFo came to meet with GreenRoots a few weeks back,” she said. “The members were all impressed and pleased with the company. Generally we’re supportive of a greater bicycle presence in the community, but what made this program more attractive was the affordable pricing and the lack of a docking station which could impacting parking in a city that struggles with that challenge.”
She acknowledged that there are some challenges with the program, but believes they can be addressed.
“We’d like to work with the City and oFo to overcome two obstacles: bike access for youth and those who don’t have credit cards,” she said, pointing out that payments are made through an app linked to a credit card.
The program becomes even more appealing with Revere launching the service next week. Having a neighboring city on board would expand the network of available bikes for Chelsea riders.
The company maintains a physical presence in the area and claims to respond quickly to issues like broken bikes or bikes improperly stored.
“People don’t realize how many people are now riding bikes in Chelsea,” said Avellaneda. “If you get up at 5 a.m. in the morning, you will see so many people riding bikes to Market Basket or the Produce Center.”