The Portland City Council approved a new bike-share contract on Wednesday, clearing the way for a bicycle rental program to roll out next summer.
The council on Wednesday approved an amended contract with Motivate 4-0, with Commissioner Dan Saltzman off for the Jewish holiday of Yom Kippur.
Under the deal, the city will buy $1.5 million in equipment using mostly federal grant money. Motivate Co. of New York will operate the program, covering costs with the revenue it generates from user fees and sponsorships.
Motivate operates municipal bike-share programs across the country, including New York's Citi Bike and Capital Bikeshare in Washington, D.C. It's the operator for 75 percent of the nation's bike-share fleet.
The council gave its approval for a three-year agreement with Motivate, though the terms of the federal grant paying for the bike-share equipment commits the city to five years of bike-share operations -- even if the program proves unprofitable.
That's complicated by the fact that Motivate and the city haven't yet found a sponsor for the program, who would pay much of the operating costs in exchange for advertising on hundreds of bikes and stations.
The city's transportation bureau, however, says there's little risk of having to bail out the bike-share program at the end of the three-year contract. Instead, it said the program could be scaled back to make do with whatever revenue it's generating.
"I think we were linking our fate to an operator who gives us a great chance at being successful," said Commissioner Nick Fish before voting for the program.
If the program is profitable, revenue beyond the cost of operation would be shared between the city and Motivate.
Commissioner Amanda Fritz had not made up her mind about the program as recently as last week, citing safety concerns. Voting for the program Wednesday, she said she looked forward to working with the city transportation bureau and Motivate on education campaigns around hemet use and safe cycling on streets.
A bike rental will cost about $2.50 for 30 minutes of use, with monthly memberships available.
After six months, Motivate could begin to experiment with pricing that changes to help aid even distribution of bikes. It could be cheaper to rent a bike in areas where they're piling up and more expensive to rent them in areas with high demand.
The bikes, supplied by Social Bicycles Inc. of New York, are equipped with computers and locking systems that will allow users to end a bike rental without returning the bike to a marked kiosk. But locking up elsewhere will cost and extra fee, which will be used to discount the rental for whoever returns it to a kiosk.
-- Elliot Njus
enjus@oregonian.com
503-294-5034