“Biketown continues to indicate us that we will make biking accessible to everybody.”
-Commissioner Jo Ann Hardesty
With a month and a half left within the 12 months, Portland’s electrical bike share system Biketown can already declare 2022 an enormous success. After beginning the 12 months off with a serious growth into north and east Portland, Biketown’s trajectory has been unstoppable this 12 months. Due to a confluence of things — starting from skyrocketing gasoline costs to extra consciousness of the Biketown for All decreased value program to an total embrace of electrical bicycles as automobile options — bike share in Portland has by no means been extra standard.
To place some numbers on it: over half one million journeys have been taken on Biketown to this point this 12 months. This surpasses the earlier annual ridership document of about 400,000 set in 2018 (again when the bikes weren’t electrical).
We coated most of the main moments on Biketown’s 2022 spotlight reel which give some perception into the efforts this system took to get extra folks on their vivid orange bikes. One of many first indicators of the bike share system’s development befell throughout Earth Day weekend, when this system shattered their earlier day by day data after permitting everybody to journey freed from cost for 3 days (it didn’t damage that weekend was sunny and beautiful).
As their consumer base grew bigger, it additionally diversified, which they program proudly introduced in a report this spring. Then Biketown ramped up their outreach efforts all through the summer season. They arrange tents at Sunday Parkways occasions, sponsored Pedalpalooza rides and teamed up with non-profit The Avenue Belief (TST) to attract extra folks into Biketown for All to allow them to journey free of charge (or nearly free). We even noticed some native politicians on the orange bikes on the Blumenauer Bridge opening.
In a press launch from the Portland Bureau of Transportation heralding Biketown’s large 12 months, PBOT Commissioner Jo Ann Hardesty expounded on this system’s success.
“Biketown continues to indicate us that we will make biking accessible to everybody after we work collectively to prioritize neighborhood members who want inexperienced, inexpensive transportation probably the most,” Hardesty mentioned.
TST’s André Lightsey-Walker, who’s been main the non-profit’s outreach efforts with Biketown for All to extend transportation fairness in Portland, advised BikePortland the work has been enlightening.
“Sure, we want extra bikes, however we additionally have to make it possible for the individuals who would profit most from getting access to them are ready to take action seamlessly inside the system we have already got.”
– André Lightsey-Walker, The Avenue Belief
“This 12 months’s document numbers show that there’s excessive demand for the growth of Portland’s bike-share system. The Avenue Belief’s partnership with Biketown and Lyft supplied a ton of perception into what must be thought-about because the system grows,” Lightsey-Walker mentioned.
Nonetheless, some advocates concern Biketown has a serious blind spot holding again its success: provide and demand. As ridership will increase, it seems this system has struggled so as to add new bikes to its fleet on the identical tempo. Particularly through the summer season months, it was quite common to see stations fully empty of bikes, which clearly inhibited some folks from renting them. However whilst Biketown excitedly shares their spectacular ridership statistics, this system nonetheless doesn’t seem to have plans to increase its stock. Through the wet and chilly winter, this will go unnoticed, however as soon as the climate warms up once more it appears probably they’ll have to deal with this dilemma.
Lightsey-Walker mentioned he thinks outreach to low-income Portlanders and rising provide of bikes ought to work in tandem with one another.
“Sure, we want extra bikes, however we additionally have to make it possible for the individuals who would profit most from getting access to them are ready to take action seamlessly inside the system we have already got,” he mentioned.
It’s nice to see how a lot Biketown has grown this 12 months. Clearly, the individuals are hungry for electrical bikes (no large shock to these of us who sing their praises as sustainable transportation game-changers). My expertise with Biketown was one impetus for me to embrace getting an electrical bike of my very own, and I might guess others have felt the identical. The extra folks on bikes, the higher, so we eagerly await the growth of the fleet and no matter else may come subsequent!
Taylor has been BikePortland’s workers author since November 2021. She has additionally written for Avenue Roots and Eugene Weekly. Contact her at taylorgriggswriter@gmail.com
