Biketown Celebrates 2-Year Anniversary

From PBOT: The Portland Bureau of Transportation and Motivate, Portland’s bike share operator, are celebrating the second birthday of BIKETOWN, the bike share system that has quickly been embraced as a key part of the community’s transportation culture.

In just two years, Nike-sponsored BIKETOWN has become a quintessential part of Portland’s transportation network, with 700,464 rides taken on its 1,000 bikes since its launch on July 19, 2016.

BIKETOWN members will gather this afternoon for a birthday party downtown.

“The City is tremendously grateful for successful public-private partnerships like BIKETOWN,” said City Commissioner Dan Saltzman, who oversees PBOT. “Join us in celebrating two years of BIKETOWN ridership and growth as we support its continued success.”

“BIKETOWN reflects Portland’s brightest qualities -- creativity, community and love of physical activity,” said Jorge Casimiro, Vice President of Global Community Impact at Nike. “Nike is proud to celebrate our partnership with the City of Portland’s Portland Bureau of Transportation as BIKETOWN rolls into its third year.”

"We're so happy that Portlanders love BIKETOWN as much as we do," said Chris Warner, Interim Director of PBOT. "BIKETOWN has introduced Portlanders and tourists to the convenience of bike sharing for day-to-day trips instead of cars, helping reduce congestion and carbon emissions. We can't wait to see how this transportation option grows in the next two years."

BIKETOWN bikes are a key part of bicycling culture in Portland, the number-one city for bike commuting in the country. To date, there have been nearly 144,000 BIKETOWN users, with 4,812 current annual members.

The system is still rapidly growing:

• The system has already seen a 24 percent increase in ridership in the past 12 months alone, with more than 387,000 trips occurring since July 17, 2017, compared with 313,000 in BIKETOWN’s first 12 months.
• This past May, riders took 4,800 trips on a single day; more than 11,000 Portland-area residents took advantage of a free ride promotion to try BIKETOWN for the first time.
• In June, BIKETOWN’s service area expanded by 70 percent to a 19.3 square-mile area reaching Northeast / Southeast 53rd Avenue.
• The “BIKETOWN for All” program, a reduced-cost membership program for low-income Portland residents, now has 354 members. Each BIKETOWN for All member averages 100 trips a year.
• BIKETOWN members have ridden more than 1,425,000 miles to date.

Survey data from July and August 2017 indicates that 28 percent of BIKETOWN trips are replacing automobile trips among local residents, helping to reduce congestion and carbon emissions. Last month, BIKETOWN updated its pricing to include lower prices and a simple “pay-as-you-go” option.

As of June 1, annual members can also take advantage of an option to lock bikes to any public bike rack in the service area at no additional cost.

BIKETOWN members will gather to celebrate the system’s second birthday today, with a Hawaiian-themed party for members at WeWork’s Power & Light building. The party will include food and drinks and a sneak preview of two new bike wrap designs.

The designs are the latest releases from the BIKETOWN Design Challenge, a Nike-sponsored community contest to create bike wraps representing the five “quadrants” of Portland.

Two of the five bike wrap designs from the BIKETOWN Design Challenge have been released so far into the BIKETOWN fleet, with two more designs to be unveiled at the birthday celebration and at this weekend’s Sunday Parkways event.

In June, 10 “BETRUE” bikes received a new rainbow-themed wrap celebrating Pride.

To celebrate with BIKETOWN, please RSVP here for festivities from 3:30-6:30 at WeWork’s Power & Light Building at 920 SW 6th Avenue.

Image via PBOT