Bike share’s coming to Portland! Uh, well part of it.
With PBOT’s announcement it’s going with a cheaper, more versatile bike share program than originally planned come inevitable concerns about access and equity. The city’s always proposed starting bike share in and around downtown, then expanding if/when the system gains popularity and more money from interested sponsors, and that’s very much still the plan. Here’s the slim swath of Portland where PBOT’s proposing its initial 600-bike rollout next summer (it’s the tan sections). Hit the jump for more.
In some ways, this is a surprisingly small area. It’s true that bike share systems often target tourists as much as residents, but even by that token the proposed service area leaves out some bustling and popular destinations in Northeast and Southeast (Alberta! Hawthorne! The gustatory glitz of SE Division!).
Beyond that, it’d leave a whole lot of residents with no more a viable means to and from home than they already have. When its not shuttling around sight-seers, bike share’s frequently seen as a last mile sort of conveyance, getting people from their bus or train stop to home more quickly. This initial rollout would help some residents, but many of them probably don’t much need it.
“I think the City of Portand is being pretty thoughtful about it,” says Justin Ginsburgh, vice president of development at New York-based Motivate, which will run the bike share program (the company was called Alta Bicycle Share and based here when it was hired by the city). “They understand you need a robust system in the core. Once you have that, then you’re able to expand beyond there.”
All this is partly understandable. Portland’s been trying for three years to attract a sponsor who could help roll out a big system, and has come up with nothing. The 600 bikes PBOT’s proposed are being bought mostly with $1.8 million we’ve had since 2011. It’s a far cheaper situation than what Portland had been planning, and potentially more-nimble than other bike share cites.
The system PBOT’s buying is more akin to Car2Go than traditional bike share systems—meaning you can park a bike anywhere in that tan service area, not just at specified dock points. (There will, however, be “hubs” where its cheaper to park bikes. Riders who want to lock up outside of those hubs would have to pay a fee. The city doesn’t know where hub locations will be yet, or what the system will be called.)
It’ll be interesting to see what kind of political support this long-sought program gets at a time when Portland’s as concerned as it’s ever been about people being shunted to the side. Commissioner Amanda Fritz has repeatedly raised concerns about bike share being unavailable in farther flung parts of town, and it looks like this one will be unavailable even in many close-in ‘hoods. Fritz may well vote against the new plan (PBOT’s seeking council approval to modify a contract and move forward). Her office says it’s too soon to tell.
Dan Saltzman’s also been a consistent skeptic. He’s opposed to spending any city dollars on bike share (which isn’t part of the plan right now). Even if those two go against the proposed system though, it’s got likely allies in Commissioners Steve Novick and Nick Fish, and Mayor Charlie Hales.
There are plans, as I say, to expand this system, but that’s going to be wholly reliant on Motivate. The company’s struck out on finding sponsors so far, but says it’s marshaled a new marketing team that’s going balls-out to find money.
“We’re being a lot more creative and aggressive,” Ginsburgh says. “We’re beating the bushes in Portland.”
He stresses Portland bears no risk in this—that Motivate will operate the system even if sponsors take longer to convince than planned. The exact language of that agreement’s should become public on Friday.
I’m an every-day, car-free bicyclist.
The city should have pulled the plug on this project years ago.
It takes resources away from active transportation and pedestrian safety projects, it ignores the city’s alleged equity goals and it doesn’t do what PBOT and the BTA promised it would do.
The need to keep up with other bike cities so that beaurocrats and politicians –most of whom don’t ride –can slap each other on the back and give each other awards is not a compelling justification for this program.
I truly don’t care that New York has one.
@euphonious, Agreed. It’s a silly waste of money for something I’ve never heard a soul actually advocate for. If you want to use a bike, buy a bike. There is a decent bike for virtually every budget. If you want to rent a bike, there are a dozen convenient places to rent one. There will be no net gain in people coming to Portland because we have bike share while some other city doesn’t.
@Commenty Colin The BTA advocated hard for it, and actually had an online petition and a campaign to email the City Council in favor of it. They got their members –which they have lots –to clamor for it.
What they didn’t tell their members was that the funding they were agitating for was originally supposed to go for pedestrian and bike safety improvements to SW Barbur Blvd.
Oops.
But what’s a little white lie to your own members when you’re in the hunt to be Cycling Magazine’s most Platinumest Bike City ever?
I think I mentioned this in a different thread the other day, but a successful bike share system is one that is used by people who don’t live in the area where it’s operating (because those people will just use their own bikes). The target shouldn’t be close-in residents. The target should be people who work in the area but live out in the suburbs; and tourists. There’s far more of those people in places like New York or London than in Portland, but we still have our fair share and enough to make a modest system like this work.
With that in mind, having most of the bikes downtown makes perfect sense; equality of access outside of the central core is pretty much irrelevant. The map there is actually a pretty decent attempt at covering the most important areas. I’d question the North Portland block (which seems to have been thrown in there as a sop to a low-income area rather than any logical reason); and omitting Washington and Laurelhurst Parks seems like a mistake.
As for the budget, it’s important to ask how much marketing there is going to be for incoming tourists (adverts at the airport and on the MAX?). That’s absolutely essential to make this thing more than just a boondoggle.
“Equality of access outside of the central core is pretty much irrelevant.”
Really? The bulk of Portlanders live in East Portland and we pay more in property taxes due to “tax compression.”
Downtown bike share is irrelevant to us.
Let the hotels pay for bike share- I couldn’t give a rat’s ass about tourists. Let them rent bikes from the existing bike rental businesses. While we are at it- why doesn’t AirBnB pay for bike share, since they are bringing in so many crappy tourists to displace residents.
This is beyond stupid.
One can still advocate for bikes while understanding this to be a failing idea.
At least for tax-paying citizens.
Tourists, in the summer, will applaud our tax-funded giveaway.
But is that enough to generate more business?
WWWHHHHYYYYYY is this still a thing?????