After delays, Ride Salem shifts downtown-area bike-share program into gear

A Salem bike-share program has shifted into gear with some out-of-town help.

Ride Salem is working in tandem with Massachusetts company Zagster to rent out more than 20 bikes at five stations in and around downtown Salem.

Bike-shares work by allowing customers to pay for communal bicycles placed around cities, then drop them off when they're done.

"When we saw programs blossoming not just in other cities in the United States but abroad in cities such as Amsterdam, London and Paris, we thought, 'Why not Salem?'" Ride Salem Co-Founder Jenna Osborne said.

"Evan (Osborne) and I are very excited to see the nonprofit's cycleshare launch and believe it will foster healthy living and exercise, benefit low-income areas, increase tourism and reduce traffic on our roadways," she said.

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In Oregon, Corvallis and Portland have adopted similar programs. Users of Portland's BIKETOWN program took approximately 400,000 trips in 2018, and there were about 124,000 users that year, according to an annual report. Ride Salem declined to release early ridership data for its program, which began operating in June.

In Salem, users download the Zagster app on their phones, then go through steps to unlock and ride the bikes. Customers without smartphones can text SMS to 202-999-3924 for info on renting without the app. After customers are done riding, the bicycles can be left at stations around the city.

The standard hourly rate is $3, though other options exist. Students and business partners can pay $15 a year so trips lasting less than an hour are free, then cost $2 an hour. Other customers can pay $25 annually to get trips under 1 1/2 hours free, then pay $2 per additional hour.

Each bike costs about $1,500 and use hardened-steel shackles to let users lock and unlock them, according to a report from the City of Salem.

Ride Salem is letting new customers ride free for four hours by using the promotional code RIDESALEM until July 31. As it stands, Ride Salem's locations are:

• The West Salem Courthouse
• Courthouse Square in downtown Salem
• Ferry and Church streets SE, near Starbucks
• Park Front (virtual)
• Salem Convention Center (virtual)

The virtual locations don't have signs but are considered parking sites on Ride Salem's app, Ride Salem Co-Founder Evan Osborne said, and they "use previously installed infrastructure for bikes to be secured."

Zagster bills itself as a "micro-mobility" company specializing in modes of transportation such as e-bikes and e-scooters. The company has said it operates upwards of 250 vehicle-shares in 35 states.

"We love hearing stories of citizens embracing micro-mobility and advocating for programs in their cities, like the Osbornes and their board members did in Salem," Zagster Chief Executive Officer Dan Grossman said in a press release. "We've seen communities have great success starting small and then growing as demand increases."

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Evan and Jenna Osborne, both health care workers, made their first big pitch for a Salem bike-share program in November 2016, saying it would open the following spring under the name Capitol City Cycleshare and bring 50 bicycles that could be rented through a cell phone app.

The program would provide residents bicycles they "may not otherwise afford, maintain or store their own," Evan Osborne said at the time. "We expect fellow community members and tourists to appreciate our parks and beautiful city more than ever before through the use of the bike-share.”

The couple's timeline quickly fell apart as their nonprofit, Osborne Adventures, faced money problems and delays.

A $70,000 grant they considered "verbally guaranteed" fell through. Their board of directors then voted to put off the launch date until spring of 2018, nixing a goal to have the bike-share operational before 2017's total solar eclipse, which was visible in Salem. Further complications stalled a 2018 launch.

Now, with a name change and scaled back plans, the couple has finally gotten its Ride Salem bike-share program rolling.

"It is nice to finally have something to show for after all these years," Evan Osborne told the Statesman Journal.

The 2017 launch fizzled because the nonprofit couldn't finalize a right-of-way agreement with the City of Salem, he said. After an agreement was signed, he said, delays continued into 2018 when the nonprofit was told it would need to pay for cement patios to have stations at Salem's Riverfront Park, he said.

The team got permission last year to have stations at Bush's Pasture Park and Riverfront Park, but they're still too expensive for now, he said.

"We had to get creative and reach out to community organizations with private property in the downtown area," he said. "In so doing, we were able to establish parking sites for the cycles using pre-installed hardware designated as virtual stations."

That allows Ride Salem to have enough places for parking for 23 bicycles in its fleet and launch the program, he said. The virtual stations are a stopgap until Ride Salem installs stations in Riverfront Park.

Ride Salem also is in talks with the State of Oregon about additional stations, including one by the Capitol Mall, Osborne said. Another virtual station could be placed on the Salem Hospital campus.

Jonathan Bach has been a business and City Hall reporter with the Statesman Journal since 2016. To support his work, Subscribe to the Statesman Journal. Email him at jbach@statesmanjournal.com, call (503) 399-6714 or follow him on Twitter @jonathanmbach.