Portland Bikeshare Drawing Big Crowds in First Six Months

Users of Portland's Biketown bikeshare system are choosing to rent bikes instead of driving.

1 minute read

January 20, 2017, 2:00 PM PST

By James Brasuell @CasualBrasuell


Portland Bikeshare

beth h / Flickr

Eliot Njus reports: "More than 38,000 people have used Portland's Biketown bike-rental program since it launched in July, taking more than 160,000 trips."

Biketown and the Portland Bureau of Transportation released the numbers earlier this week, including data with more detail, like trip length and membership length. One very positive sign of success for bikeshare advocates: "Of the 2,400 users surveyed, about 26 percent said they had used the bike-share system instead of driving, and 64 percent said they were biking more because of the program."

John Metcalfe also picked up on the news for CityLab. It's also worth noting that while this news is good, Biketown has only been in operation for six months. In a cautionary tale, Portland's rival to the north, Seattle, announced the failure of its bikeshare system just last weekend.

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