What Portland bike share might look like if no sponsors emerge.
  • What Portland bike share might look like if no sponsors emerge.

When the Portland Bureau of Transportation announced last week it's finally moving forward with a bike share program next year, many of the details were hard to come by. PBOT wouldn't share a copy of an amended contract it wants to ink with New York-based motivate, the latest incarnation of Alta Bicycle Share, which Portland selected to run its bike share system in 2012.

Portland City Council will consider that contract on Wednesday, and the deal's expected to have at least the three votes it needs to pass. The city released a copy [pdf] of the new contract on Friday. We read it! Here are a few notable takeaways.

Surge pricing's on the table: Ride-hailing apps like Uber have attracted occasional criticism for these pricing tactics, where rides are more-expensive during periods of high demand. Such schemes haven't been a common feature of American bike share systems, but it seems they could be in Portland. The proposed contract with Motivate lays down some price baselines—including that a 30-minute ride should cost an average of $2.50. But that's not a hard rate. Motivate's able to charge up to $5 per half-hour if it's trying to "rebalance" the system—encouraging bikes to move toward other parts of the service area to make sure bikes aren't stacking up in certain places.

Even that's not a hard limit though. The contract states: "In cases of special events, City and Motivate can agree to pricing that exceeds $5 for a 30 minute ride. Motivate shall not use real-time demand based surge pricing on standard fare products for the first six months of the System."

Motivate's on the hook for graffiti—particularly if it's racist: The contract requires Motivate to remove graffiti on the system no more than three days after it's discovered or reported—but no more than four hours "in the case of racist or hate graffiti." If the bike share operator doesn't clean up in time? It owes the City of Portland $50 per day—or $50 per four hours if the scrawlings are racist.

The city has (unsuccessfully) pressed four companies for sponsorship: There's a lot of language in the contract dedicated to Motivate's responsibility for finding a system sponsor, the single biggest difficulty Portland's had in acquiring bike share. The city's particularly keen on finding a 5-year, $4 million "title sponsorship."

Motivate has every reason to be motivated. It's on the hook for system costs that outpace revenues during the course of the three-year contract, but it also gets 20 percent of the sponsorship money it hauls in—that is, except in the case of four companies. The contract states Motivate only keeps 10 percent of sponsorship cash from Kaiser Permanente, Umpqua Bank, New Seasons Market, and Ford Motor Company.

The list offers a glimpse into the backdoor wheeling and dealing the city's attempted over the past couple years. Kaiser Permanente was widely rumored to have agreed to a sponsorship at one point—there were even "Kaiser Bikes" mock-ups in circulation. Then the deal fell through. "With the four companies listed, we had already had some discussions about possible sponsorship," says PBOT spokesman John Brady, "so they wouldn't qualify."

The city and Motivate will share any big-time revenues: Under the agreement, sponsorship money and proceeds from running the bike share system are put into a single account, from which operating expenses are drawn. If, at the end of 2017 or subsequent years, that account has more than $1 million, Motivate gets 60 percent of any money over $1 million. The city gets 40 percent.

Bike theft's sort of okay, as long as it's six a year or less: Motivates responsible for repairs or replacement, but the contract says there's "an allowable 'shrink rate' of 1% per year for stolen City-owned bikes over the Term." The system's going to be 600 bikes if everything goes as planned.