Portland hopes to extend its Biketown rental program “to the entire city” next spring, officials said Wednesday, and electric assist bikes are expected to be part of that expanded fleet.
The City Council approved a plan Wednesday to extend a contract with Motivate, which operates the Biketown fleet, through April 30, 2020. The $3.4 million contract extension is intended to keep continuous bike service as Portland seeks a new contract with provisions – like e-bikes -- designed to grow ridership.
It’s possible Portland may choose to continue working with Motivate to run the Biketown system going forward, but Wednesday’s vote allows the system to remain the same until the spring.
The contract with Motivate was originally set to expire in August. As The Oregonian/OregonLive had previously reported, the city pledged to include e-bikes in the next contract, which it had hoped would mean e-bikes on Portland streets by the late summer of 2019. But as Willamette Week reported earlier this month, that plan was put on hold and the city intended to extend its existing contract, thereby delaying e-bikes until 2020. Wednesday’s vote made that move official.
Steve Hoyt-McBeth, a city transportation manager overseeing Biketown’s program, said the next contract would hopefully result in bike share bikes being available “to the entire city” next year. Portland currently has 1,002 bikes and 147 stations across central city and eastside neighborhoods.
Hoyt-McBeth said e-bikes, which allow rider to more easily pedal up hills, could be a gamechanger, particularly as the city eyes expansion to Southwest Portland. E-bikes make riding a bike “more viable for people,” particularly when hills are involved, he told the council.
John Brady, a city transportation spokesman, had previously told The Oregonian the city planned a “major expansion of the system to serve new neighborhoods and districts,” but he said the agency didn’t have any more specifics when directly asked.
Hoyt-McBeth said the city intended to renew its sponsorship contract with Nike, which extends through July 2021. The city can seek renegotiate or extend that deal in the summer of 2020.
One new wrinkle that’s unlikely to be provided in 2020: Helmets. Hoyt-McBeth said the city “has not made progress” in finding a “real-time” rental service for on-demand helmets.
“We pursued negotiations with a vendor that proposed to have a helmet vending solution,” Hoyt-McBeth said of the original contract, but he said the company went bankrupt, and the city has yet to see another company pop up with similar services.
-- Andrew Theen
503-294-4026
@andrewtheen
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