MoGo Adds New Station in Partnership With Wayne State University
The partnership includes free annual passes for all Wayne State students, staff, and faculty, and comes on the heels of MoGo’s 500,000-ride milestone.
DETROIT. October 21, 2021 — This week, MoGo, Metro Detroit’s non-profit bikeshare organization, in partnership with Wayne State University, opened a new bikeshare station at the Mike Ilitch School of Business.
The station, located on Woodward Avenue just south of Temple Street, will provide direct access for students at the southernmost point of campus, and will be an additional transit option for students, staff, and faculty in connecting them to other parts of campus. This will be the sixth station that serves the greater WSU campus area.
MoGo has been serving the Wayne State and greater-downtown Detroit area since 2017; it has also been operating in Northwest Detroit, Ferndale, Royal Oak, Oak Park, Berkley, and Huntington Woods since 2020.
The partnership with Wayne State, which originated in Wayne State’s Office of Economic Development, includes free Annual MoGo passes for students, staff, and faculty of the university. Wayne State created the program to encourage its community to use public transportation to get to, and around, campus. The program also offers free DDOT and SMART bus passes.
“MoGo is a convenient, exciting, and healthy way for people to get to where they need to go,” said Adriel Thornton, MoGo’s executive director. “We’re proud to partner with Wayne State to expand our service and offer students and staff the opportunity to utilize this mobility option, for free.”
Through the first 6 weeks of the program, which launched in September, more than 1,000 Wayne State students, faculty, and staff have logged over 3,000 rides, suggesting that the program is popular and useful.
“We are thrilled with the early success of Wayne State’s partnership with MoGo,” said Ned Staebler, Wayne State’s vice president for economic development and president and CEO of TechTown Detroit. “The new station gives our students, faculty, and staff yet another easy option for traveling between Wayne State’s core campus and the Mike Ilitch School of Business.”
The Wayne State partnership has so far exceeded expectations, contributing to MoGo reaching a major milestone of 500,000 rides since launching. Previous projections had estimated that MoGo would achieve that number of rides in 2022; Wayne State staff and students’ early adoption of the free pass promotion contributed greatly to this goal being reached months earlier.
In early October, MoGo rewarded the 500,000th rider, a Wayne State librarian who had redeemed her pass at the beginning of September, with a swag-pack and lifetime Annual Pass.
Reaching 500,000 rides was also made possible by Shift Transit, MoGo’s operational partner since their launch in 2017.
“Our partnership with MoGo shows just how much we can accomplish to make active transit options accessible to Detroiters,” said Shift Transit’s CEO Edward Inlow. “Shift is thrilled to celebrate this exciting program milestone and looking forward to continuing to power the bikeshare system for many years to come.”
Representatives from both MoGo and Wayne State are excited about the initial results of the partnership, and look forward to its sustained growth and success.
For more information, including the Wayne State partnership, the 500,000-ride milestone, and a map of MoGo’s system, visit mogodetroit.org.
About MoGo
With 620 bikes located at 75 stations in metro Detroit, MoGo is a non-profit organization that strives to serve a wide range of people and needs. MoGo is made possible by generous support from its title sponsors, Henry Ford Health System and Health Alliance Plan (HAP), who have been partners in fostering healthy, vibrant, and active communities through bikeshare since 2017.
About Wayne State University
Wayne State University is a premier urban-serving public research institution offering nearly 350 academic programs through 13 schools and colleges to more than 27,000 students.
About Shift Transit
Shift Transit is a leading provider in shared mobility operations, managing 25,000 mobility assets on a daily basis. Shift Transit offers clients a robust suite of services, including vehicle maintenance, repair, recharging/refueling, rebalancing, marketing and sales, and government relations support. For more information, visit www.shifttransit.net.
