Think of it as a Red Bike on the water.
Red Bike is the popular bicycle rideshare system that has spread across the city. Now self-service kiosks with kayaks for rent have started to spread on Greater Cincinnati waterways.
The first one in Cincinnati will open along Mill Creek on Sept. 6 in Northside’s Salway Park. Six others have already opened in Northern Kentucky and nearby Kentucky counties.
If all goes according to Northern Kentucky couple Chris and Amanda Schack’s plan, the region will have many more on rivers, lakes and streams in a few years.
“It makes an easy date,” Chris Schack said of his self-service kayak rentals.
“Our goal is to provide a convenient, affordable watercraft experience for somebody who just wants to go out on the water for a few hours or even all day,” he said.
Self-serve kayak rentals first spread across NKY
Self-service kayaks have appeared in other cities. At least two parks in the region have a kayak kiosk: A.J. Jolly in Alexandria, Kentucky and Voice of America Park in West Chester.
The Schacks want to make them more accessible.
Their company, Schack’s Yaks, began putting in self-serve kayak kiosks in Kentucky four years ago with the first one along a creek in Augusta, Kentucky, about an hour southeast of Cincinnati. It took a few months for people to get accustomed to the idea of a kayak vending machine. Once they did, Schack’s Yaks took off, said Chris Schack, whose day job is a Newport firefighter.
They now have kayak rental stations at the confluence of the Ohio and Licking Rivers in Newport, along the Licking River in Wilder, Doe Run Lake in Erlanger, Odell Lake in Walton and the Kentucky River in Carrollton.
They average “a handful of people a day,” Chris Schack said. Holidays are busier, he said.
“We had a bunch of rentals,” Schack said about this past Labor Day. “We actually had people waiting in their cars at two of our locations.”
Mill Creek was the ‘perfect spot’
Now the kayak vending machines are ready to make the journey across the Ohio River.
Cincinnati City Councilman Mark Jeffreys heard about the Schack’s company and wanted to bring it to Cincinnati. An avid kayaker, Jeffreys said he often goes out on the Mill Creek.
When he found out about the Schacks, he said he worked to get them on the Ohio side of the river.
The nonprofit conservation organizations Mill Creek Alliance and Tristate Trails and the Cincinnati Recreation Commission settled on Salway Park across from Spring Grove Cemetery as the ideal location for the first kayak kiosk.
“It’s a perfect spot for it,” said Jeffreys as he stood earlier this week along the banks of the Mill Creek at Salway Park. “You think about the Mill Creek … I run past here almost every day and I see a blue heron almost every day. I’ve seen bald eagles. You get snapping turtles. It’s super cool.”
‘Nature will make a comeback’
You can hear the hum of the nearby Interstate 75, one of the busiest highways in the nation. Factories are just out of sight around the stream’s bend. Along this stretch, the Mill Creek is calm and clear.
Kayaking on the Mill Creek would have been unthinkable 30 years ago, said Dave Schmitt, executive director of Mill Creek Alliance. Factories throughout the 19th and 20th centuries used the creek as a sewer and dumping ground. In 1997, conservation group American Rivers named the stream the “most endangered stream in North America.”
In the 1990s, there were no fish or wildlife in the Mill Creek due to pollution except for maybe the occasional carp near where the creek emptied into the Ohio River, Schmitt said. Now there are 65 species of fish found along the length of the stream as well as bald eagles, ospreys, turtles, muskrats and other wildlife, he said.
“We’ve taken a creek that national experts said could never be recovered, that it was unfixable,” Schmitt said. “It’s taken awhile, but we’ve proven nature will make a comeback, will recover if you give it a chance.”
The cleanup efforts in the past two decades have paid off, turning the maligned stream into a recreation corridor. The kayak kiosk represents that progress, Schmitt and Jeffreys said.
“Now it’s a great place for people in Cincinnati and all of Greater Cincinnati to come and enjoy nature in the heart of the city,” Schmitt said. “You don’t have to drive an hour or more to go find a place to paddle and put your feet in the water and just relax.”
No taxpayer money going into the project
No city money is being spent on the project. Mill Creek Alliance and Tristate Trails stepped up to pay the Schack’s Yak’s $500 to offset some of the costs.
How does it work?
While it’s compared to Red Bike for the water, Schack said there is one big difference. You must return the kayak to the same kiosk. Red Bike allows you to return the bike to other stations.
In some cases that means paddling up and down stream. In the case of the Mill Creek location, there’s virtually no current for a mile and a half upriver, Jeffreys and Schack said.
Indeed at Salway Park’s kayak launch site, barely a ripple could be seen on the placid surface:
- The kayaks are locked in two bins near the launch site by a parking lot.
- To unlock them, you follow the posted instructions, which includes downloading the Koloni app.
- The kayaks cost $15 for the first hour and $10 for each additional hour.
- Lost or damaged kayaks cost $400.
- They come with the paddle and life jacket.
The site is monitored by cameras.
What’s next?
Schack and Schmitt with the Mill Creek Alliance said they will soon open more locations along the Mill Creek. The next one will likely be in South Cumminsville, Schmitt said.
Schack’s Yacks hopes to work with the city of Cincinnati to organize youth outings on the Mill Creek for summer camps. The Schacks also want to be involved in river cleanups and environmental restoration efforts, Schack said.
He got into the kayak business years ago due to his love of the outdoors, spending time on a kayak when he goes duck hunting and fishing. The Schacks for a few years operated a kayak store in New Richmond. When the demands of running a store became too much, the idea of a self-serve kayak rental business took shape.
He wants people in Cincinnati to view Schack’s Yaks as a vital part of the community, not only for kayaks but for conservation.
“When people see our logo, I think they’re going recognize like, ‘Hey, those are the guys that rent out the kayaks at those self-service kiosks, but those are also the people that help clean up our waterways,” Schack said. “Those are also the people that promote outdoor recreational activities like hunting and fishing.”
‘ The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties ’
‘ Some details of this article were extracted from the following source www.cincinnati.com ’
