Minnesota Nice Ride bike sharing system launches membership kiosks that dispense keys

According to Minnesota Public Radio, "Nice Ride MN gets an upgrade."  Before now, people joined online and got their key fobs in the mail.  This way they can get the fob immediately, which allows significantly faster check out than using a credit card.

Images of the Key dispensing kiosk courtesy of Minnesota Nice Ride.

Note that it took many many many years for the WMATA Metrorail system to install SmarTrip farecard dispensing machines in Metro stations.  Before that people received the cards by mail.

And it makes me realize that the various commuter stores in the jurisdictions, such as Arlington's Commuter Stores, ought to be promoting and selling bike memberships and dispensing key fobs too.

Thus far, this appears to be one of the only major technical innovations in North American bike share since the introduction of more modern systems beginning in Montreal in 2009.

Programmatically, the Hubway bike share system has innovated in terms of the cost of memberships for low income residents--$5 per year.