Bikes line both sides of 13th Avenue. They race back and forth down the street, dodging students and faculty and weaving their way to classes and events. More bikes line the curb beyond campus for students to buy or rent throughout the year, and a bike lane dominates the roadway.
And yet, there are soon to be more.
The City of Eugene, in partnership with the University of Oregon and Lane Transit District, will launch the Eugene Bike Share system in spring 2018.
This will hopefully reduce traffic on campus parking lots and for buses like the EMX, according to Eugene Bike Share’s General Manager Lindsey Hayward.
With 300 bikes and 35 stations, the system was originally intended to be specific to the UO campus, said Hayward.
A lack of approval from Campus Risk Management took the project off the table in 2012, according to UO Bike Program Coordinator Kelsey Moore.
Due to interest from the rest of the community and a grant from the Oregon Transportation Commission, the project was opened again in 2015 but expanded to include downtown and the Whiteaker neighborhood.
After the gain of a title sponsor in September, the system was set for a spring opening. The sponsor will be revealed at an announcement event in January.
The $1.3 million project is largely funded by the grant; however, ASUO also contributed $197,311 in 2015. These funds were originally allocated by ASUO in 2012 but were not paid until the project restarted three years later. According to Moore, this contribution ensured the university would have four to six stations on or around campus.
“On campus it’s great,” Moore said. “We have a big campus, so there’s definitely a lot of people who will be using bike share to cross campus or run an errand, but I think a lot of people will also use it to go downtown and [to] the Whiteaker. I know a lot of students are really liking the businesses, the coffee shops [and] the different opportunities for retail that are in those two locations, so I definitely see people using the system.”
Moore also noted the high traffic times when people are visiting campus or just want to use a bike for the day or the weekend, so bike share would allow access without the commitment of buying or renting.
After the launch during spring term, students will get 15 minutes a day of free ride time, and after that will pay $1 for every 15 min with the bike. With a $5 monthly pass, students get an hour for free every day.
In its new location at the EMU, Moore said the Bike Program got much more traffic these past two summers with incoming freshmen and their parents wondering if bringing a bike would be worth it.
“They didn’t want the responsibility of if it got stolen, so they were really concerned about theft, about maintenance [and] about would they use it enough. So when they heard bike share would be launching this year, people were really excited, because it takes all of that ownership responsibility off of you, but you have all of the access.”
UO student Jennifer Sanchez echoed Moore’s thoughts. She left her bike at home in California but says she could definitely see herself using this system.
“I believe that would work really well for me; just to go back [and] forth instead of relying on the bus stations,” Sanchez said.
She said she could see other out-of-state students as well as international students taking advantage of the “quick and go” transportation.
The chosen bike share company, Social Bike, is the same one used by Biketown in Portland. According to Associate Transportation Planner Reed Dunbar, the systems will be similar and Social Bike members will be able to travel back and forth and take advantage of both projects.
While Hayward says the Eugene system will have updated bikes from Biketown, another key difference will be the color.
“We can’t have orange bikes on campus,” she said.
The bikes are in the branding and production phase, but, according to Harmon, the city is still open to public comment before finalizing the locations of the bike stations. A map of the proposed locations as well as a video that shows how bike share works can be found here.
Follow Becca Robbins on Twitter: @brobbinsuo