$6.6M for 750 bikes? In a city where anyone who is likely to bike already owns a bike? And where you can regularly find bikes for $100 on craigslist? Genius.
Why not allow 66,000 low-income individuals to apply for a free bike instead?

I think giving free bikes to Low-income people is a great idea. In fact, it would be fantastic if our government gave a free bike to every child who turns, say, 10 years old. In fact, every tax paying adult should get a free bike as well. Seriously, that would be a huge step into making our towns and cities safer places to live. It will improve health, reduce traffic, reduce pollution, reduce noise, and reduce the costs involved in maintaining so many parking lots and wide roads.

Well, the bikes aren't really free. We do pay for them via our Federal Taxes.

free for the low income families that can't afford to purchase a bike and probably are paying minimal if any taxes. I would gladly pay taxes to support an initiative like this.

As a supporter of bike share programs in general, I have to agree with Pluke PDX. For a price tag that high we can do so many other, better, more impactful things for the community.

That is a subsidy that I would balk at for any company.

So once again, to Hell with everyone who isn't lucky enough to live in the Pearl, SW, or inner-most SE Portland. So typical. Then again, had TriMet not eliminated Fareless Square last Sept., there might not be nearly as much a demand for this.

It will spread to other neighborhoods if the demand is there. I personally think they should have stations everywhere south of the river, west of I-205 north of say, Johnson Creek, and east of the West Hills. It will take some time before that amount of real estate is covered but I think it could happen if the program is successful. People need to let the project start and then lobby for it to expand to new turf!

Why is this even needed? The city already has an extensive bus, train, and streetcar network, is one of the most bike-friendly cities in the Universe, such that most people who would ride a bike already have one, and...I mean, what need does this serve? Tourists? There are already places to rent tourist bikes, including those annoying golf cart things that are always in the way.

THANK YOU!!!!!

It is important because it offers people who would normally drive around the city for short trips an alternative. Bikes don't get stuck in traffic like cars, busses, and our streetcars do. Bikes are very very cheap in relation to expanding other transportation systems. Why wouldn't we do this? 4.5 million is peanuts compared to the 4.5 BILLION that people were planning to spend on the CRC. The less cars that are on the streets the better our city will be and this is a step in that direction.

None of this is new. The project funding never penciled out from day one. The coverage area was never envisioned to reach beyond the area that is already well served by light rail, bus, and streetcar.

What the article does not address: This project was selected for federal funding at the expense of competing projects for improved pedestrian safety away from downtown, such as on Foster Road or Barbur Blvd.

It seems clear that the crowd-sourced feature allowing people to suggest and vote on stations is being disregarded here, as many people expected. When you look at the most popular stations, many or most are in the southeast beyond this map. If bike share serves the neighborhoods, then I don't mind public money being used. If it serves tourists, well, they have many other options to get around downtown.

Great, the city is going to waste even more money on a program for people that can afford their own bikes. Why doesn't Portland burn tax money on even more ridiculous projects, like a hot-air balloon ferry between Mt Tabor and Downtown?

Because the mayor and his cohorts don't know anyone that sells hot air balloons, just street cars.

I don't see the problem with this project starting out in the dense urban core and expanding outward from there, as long as certain neighborhoods aren't red-lined in that second and third expansion phase.

As a sidenote, is it really an issue of equity when Overlook and Laurelhurst are just as not included in the initial plan as Cully or Piedmont? I think we should wait for when the project expands outside of the urban core to make charges about inequitable distribution of stations.

http://bikes.oobrien.com/ba...

Check out the Map of Barcelona's bike share. They are indeed focusing on the central city. The purpose isn't to give everyone a bike, but rather to provide options in the urban core so that people don't have to bring as many cars into town. Go to a city where it's in use and you'll see that the users are running errands, going from the subway/light rail station to work, etc.

I wonder how much those old 'yellow bikes' cost to build/overhaul/paint/maintain? For $6.5 mil I am guessing 1000's of them so that every neighborhood could take advantage of them and not just a select few.

The biggest problem with bringing bike sharing to Portland was the choice to go with Alta Bike Share. These guys don't exactly project any sense of competency but I can see why they were chosen, being a local company and all but still. Seriously? Alta? And then we have idiots like Political Ed and his comment, "Great, more idiots riding bikes in the city." Way to go Political Ed, if something sounds progressive then it must be bad, right?

First and foremost, I support bike sharing and I want a bike share program in Portland but seriously, Alta is a home-grown company and they have not made much progress in Portland. 10,000 bikes in New York does not help us in Portland.

Maybe the 4.6 million extra they are requiring or failure to find the "outside sources" of revenue are the incompetency to which Mister v refers.

Casey is correct. Alta knew what was expected of them but does not seem to have been able to bring their plan through to fruition. Mia Birk talked a good game at the beginning but I still do not see any proposed date for launching bike sharing in PDX. You want another company, check out Nice Ride MN. They managed to bring bike sharing to Minneapolis on time and on budget and they continue to expand.

Great, more idiots riding bikes in the city. Until Oregon requires licensing for cyclists and licenses for bikes (with legible placards on the bike itself) I think allowing more suicyclists on the city's streets is a horrible idea.

Make up your mind, you like to call for less government and less taxes, apparently that's not always true, when it's something you don't like and all of a sudden " they need to be licensed and have placards". I see you aren't so much for small government, just small minded. Typical tea party hypocrite.

Bikes are so much less of a danger or nuisance than cars it is ignorant to suggest otherwise. Name the last bike caused death or serious injury? Compare that to the amount of automobile accidents and your argument falls to pieces. Bikes aren't the problem. The problem is half the real estate in our city is dedicated to giant, noisy, smelly, metal machines burning fossil fuels traveling at unsafe speeds.

I'd say the alternative is picking the 20 most popular stations to start and then expanding. None is beyond 82nd and all are an easy trip downtown.

You can usually only take bikes out for half an hour at a time, which, for the more casual riders and those with some physical disabilities, would add challenges at best and equity issues at worst.

Oops. I guess I fed a troll. Sorry, everyone else. If you're interested, the Portland Bike Share web page's "suggest a station" feature will show you the most popular station suggestions, which are in a neat little cluster extending from downtown to southeast Portland.

I would say they should try crowd funding new stations. See if individuals or companies from a community would pony up the money to have stations in their neighbordhood. That could be a great way to determine where to expand to. Kickstarter could help...

You mean 39th, dummy.

If other cities' programs are any indication, an annual membership will be about $75. Most people won't use it commute; they'll use it while in the Central City, after their commute, or when they come into town on weekends. These systems are meant to give people an easy way to get around the central city without having to drive from, say, PSU to Old Town. Or South Waterfront to the West End.

A typical bike will be used several times a day, but different people.

BikeShare systems are wonderful, and Portland's will be no exception.

These systems get more people onto transit (by giving them additional mobility during the workday, while they're downtown. They also get more "interested but concerned" people onto bikes, by making them available for a quick ride across downtown, e.g. for a lunch appointment. And studies in DC and NYC show that they actually boost bike sales! And finally, they cost very little, relative to road and transit projects.

What's not to like?!

I'm delighted to see Portland's bikesharing system coming together, and to learn that Kaiser is putting some bicycle infrastructure investment to support their "Thrive" campaign. If the City needs to provide some up-front financing (which if I understand this correctly, will be repaid by Kaiser as their sponsorship money rolls in), that seems like a GREAT use of City funds.

If Portland's bikeshare system is received like those in DC, New York, Minneapolis, Denver and Boston, it'll initially be met with some grumbling, but will quickly morph into Portland's most popular transportation investment in decades.

Thank you Kaiser Permanente, for stepping up!

Here's a story from DC about how people grumble about this and that before bikeshare goes in, and then are pretty pleased with it once it's up: http://greatergreaterwashin...