Skip to Content
Streetsblog New York City home
Streetsblog New York City home
Log In
Streetsblog

Portland’s Long-Awaited Bike-Share System Gets Off to an Impressive Start

Portland Mayor Charlie Hales and his wife, Nancy, lead a celebratory bike ride over the car-free Tilikum Bride at the launch of Portland's Biketown bike share yesterday. Photo: Jonathan Maus
Portland Mayor Charlie Hales and his wife, Nancy, lead a celebratory bike ride over the car-free Tilikum Crossing at the launch of Portland's Biketown bike-share system. Photo: Jonathan Maus
false

Tuesday was a very exciting day in Portland, as the city celebrated the launch of its long-awaited bike-share system, Biketown. The network makes 1,000 bikes available in an eight-square mile area of the city.

Jonathan Maus at Bike Portland shot these photos of the opening festivities and crunched some numbers from the first 24 hours of service. While it's too early to fully assess the system, with about 2.3 daily trips per bike immediately after launch, Portland is off to a good start, he writes:

According to numbers released by Biketown’s operator Motivate Inc. today (at our request), there have been 2,366 trips taken on the system since it was launched yesterday at 11:30 am...

It’s still very early and the numbers will get more useful once we’ve got a full month of data -- but we can’t resist doing a bit of comparison.

So far Portland’s bikes get more rides per day than the ones in Minneapolis’ Nice Ride system got after five years in service. Nice ride, which has much lower station density than Portland, got 1.6 trips per bike per day on average in 2014 (source: NACTO). On the other end of the scale, Chicago’s Divvy bike share system and Citi Bike in New York City got 3.8 and 5.2 trips per bike in that year, respectively.

From a membership perspective, Biketown seems to be doing quite well. 1,252 annual memberships have been sold since they went on sale June 14th. Contrast that with Seattle’s bike share system which had 1,154 members at the end of its first full month post-launch.

Maybe the fact that Portland has a fairly substantial bike lane network and no helmet law is giving Biketown a leg up.

Elsewhere on the Network today: The Bike Coalition of Greater Philadelphia issues a guide to biking during the DNC. The Reno Rambler feels jealous of Lincoln, Nebraska's new protected bike lane. And Streets.mn delves into the values Pokémon Go in cities.

Stay in touch

Sign up for our free newsletter

More from Streetsblog New York City

Sean Duffy’s ‘Great America Road Trip’ Wants You to Drive to Central Park

Sean Duffy's "Great American Road Trip" encourages Americans to drive to sites in the most transit-rich and car-choked parts of the country.

July 3, 2025

Ex-DOT Official Warns NYC’s ‘Counterproductive’ E-bike Speed Limit Will Curb Biking, Safety

The mayor is working overtime to undo the decade of gains for cycling in the Big Apple, a former de Blasio administration official told Streetsblog.

July 3, 2025

Thursday’s Headlines: Just the News Edition

Things are slowing down for summer, but not entirely. Here's the news.

July 3, 2025

DOT Boss Defends Adams’s ‘Vision Zero’ Record As Agency Fights A Bike Lane in Court

Traffic fatalities are down and the DOT is taking a victory lap — even as it argues against a protected bike lane in court.

July 2, 2025

Cyclist Arrested After Crash with Electric ‘One-wheel’-Style Unicycle

Carolyn Backus is charged with fleeing the scene of a crash causing serious injury, but the details are murky.

Wednesday’s Headlines: Return of Summer Streets Edition

Summer Streets is back and bigger than ever. Plus more news.

July 2, 2025
See all posts