The Arizona Daily Star reports in Electric-bike sharing can get rolling with $35k investment that Tucson may be the first city in the U.S. to start an electric bicycle sharing program.

If Tucson invests $35,000 to start an electric bike-sharing program, it could take some cars off the road.

It would also put Tucson among the first cities in the country with a way for people to borrow an electric bicycle, businessman Daniel Mannheim told a City Council subcommittee Thursday, in a pitch for public funding.

Two U.S. cities are running pilot programs on bicycle-sharing, and Paris has about 200,000 bikes in its program for short-term rentals, said Mannheim, owner of Bikes Electric in Tucson.

But he said Tucson could be the first in the country offering electric bicycles as alternative transportation.