The Portland Tribune- City gives bike rentals a spin: Bids to launch a 500-cycle fleet are due by Lee van der Voo

A bicycle fleet that would make quick trips possible from kiosks throughout the city could hit Portland streets within a year, polishing the city's image as one of the most bike-friendly places in the nation.

As it does, Portlanders also might be asked to choose between paying public subsidies for cheap, available bikes and allowing advertising in public spaces to pay for a bike-rental program.

Following the lead of European cities such as Paris, city Commissioner Sam Adams wants to establish a rental fleet of 500 bikes as the first phase of a bike-rental plan for Portland.CLEMENS BILAN/ / GETTY IMAGES: Launched this summer, the “Velib” rental program in Paris seems to be a success, having logged more than 3 million rides on its 10,000-bike fleet. Portland hopes to launch its own bike-rental service, and about 10 companies are expected to bid on it.

Targeting car and transit commuters, the service is aimed at people who make short trips during the day, primarily downtown, and who could benefit from having bicycles for those trips, instead of cars. Students and visiting tourists also are expected to use the service.

Trials of similar programs began in Washington, D.C., and San Francisco this May and June.

In other parts of the world, bike rentals are supported by ad revenue generated from billboards and other public-space advertising. Advertising dollars keep rental costs low and the bike programs focused on user convenience.

With the existing programs bike rentals tend to be free for the first half-hour, then accrue small fees. People who use them register in advance, then pick up the bikes from automated lockers. In Rennes, France, a quick online registration and a magnetic card, later delivered by mail, gets riders started.

Companies bidding on a bike-rental plan for Portland are being asked to develop a similar strategy, which would place bikes at automated kiosks around the city's core.

Private companies would supply both the bikes and the technology to manage them. Once a bidder is selected, a public committee will weigh in on details about design and location.

Otherwise, city officials say that they have few criteria for bidders, hoping to invite a range of ideas.

Public subsidy not ruled out
"It's such a new thing in this country, we're not clear on how it will work," said Roland Chlapowski, senior policy director for Commissioner Adams. "Depending on how it takes off or how it goes over here in Portland, we see this as a big program that could hopefully be self-supporting."

Chlapowski said it will take a review of the proposals to determine how self-supporting the Portland program might be. He said Adams hasn't ruled out a public subsidy if the local advertising market is too small to support the bike program or Portlanders balk at the scope of required ads.

He said the bike rentals are part of Portland's overall plan to become the most bike-friendly city in the nation - Portland already has gold status from the League of American Bicyclists and is aiming to be the first large city to hit platinum.

Local cyclists believe the rentals could succeed here and boost bike ridership downtown.

"People in Portland get around in a lot of different ways and not necessarily the same way every day," said Scott Bricker, interim executive director of the Bicycle Transportation Alliance. "There are people who take transit or drive who would be interested in biking to a meeting, and bicycling is the easiest way to get around downtown."

The BTA may assist one bidder with public outreach for the program but Bricker declined to discuss the proposal.

Meanwhile, companies are lining up to help Portland make the leap. With bids due today, those leaning toward making proposals give a good indication of what's ahead.

Nonprofit organizations that loan bikes from a single hub, such as the Arcata Bicycle Library in Arcata, Calif., could be in the mix. One local firm, Alta Planning & Design, will join a team of companies in rolling out a plan that focuses on low rental costs with little reliance on advertising revenue.

Those small companies will face off against media giant Clear Channel Outdoor. Officials with Clear Channel acknowledged the company would be bidding and is likely to seek advertising space in exchange for the bike program.

Clear Channel works the U.S.
A leader in computerized bike-rental programs, Clear Channel has built eight similar services in cities in Europe and Scandinavia.

In May, Clear Channel kicked off design of a bike-rental program in Washington, D.C. Then in June, the company secured exclusive advertising rights to San Francisco's bus shelters in exchange for taking over repairs and maintenance of the transit shelters.

In the deal, Clear Channel will pay at least $325 million to San Francisco over 20 years for ad space and also supply the city with a bike-rental program, the details of which still are being discussed.

In Portland, similar advertising deals have not been ruled out, but Chlapowski said city officials would want to gauge community support before expanding public advertising to support a bike-rental program.

"I personally don't think Portlanders would be supportive of a huge ad expansion," he said, but pointed to things like bike stations, vending machines and newspaper banks - which could consolidate newspaper racks on sidewalks - as the kind of street furniture Portland might be willing to accommodate.

Indeed, Clear Channel Outdoor's Martina Schmidt, president of the company's street furniture division, Ad Shell, said the company is sensitive to such sentiment in America.

Schmidt said Clear Channel does operate one city-sponsored bike-rental program in Barcelona, Spain. The 6,000-bike program has no advertising component but is an anomaly among Clear Channel's programs.

Generally, Schmidt said, bike-rental programs are developed as part of advertising contracts.

If Portland's program takes hold before San Francisco's, the 500-bike fleet would be the largest bike-rental program in the United States to date. Only 120 are expected to hit the streets of Washington, D.C., as part of a trial run. San Francisco is still working on numbers for its fleet.

leevandervoo@portlandtribune.com

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