National Scan of Bike Share Equity Programs: Approaches and Best Practices for Promoting Equity in Bike Share

Abstract

As bike share systems around the United States have grown in number and size in recent years, there has been an increasing effort to ensure that those systems are accessible to all residents, particularly those who have the fewest resources or have been underserved in the past. The mobility landscape in 2019 is rapidly changing, with scooter and e-bike systems along with ride-hailing and ride-sharing companies contributing to a new and uncharted urban transportation scene. Meanwhile, bike share is still relatively new and changing quickly. In order to compete and excel in this changing landscape, particularly with regard to providing equitable service, bike share systems need to be able to better understand and document the outcomes of their programs so that they can articulate and replicate successes, identify and adapt when programs aren’t working, and continue to innovate as they seek to better serve cities. Many of the industry standards in bike share have been established by trial and error, and by learning from the experiences of peer cities. This report seeks to provide a resource to help cities navigate the range of actions that have been implemented to make bike share systems more equitable, examine successful strategies employed by other cities and systems, and understand how those systems are measuring and articulating their successes (and challenges). In doing so, we hope the report helps bike share systems learn from the experiences of others, innovate, and more quickly move toward greater equity. The Better Bike Share Partnership has awarded 15 challenge grants to support cities in varying efforts to improve the equity of bike share. There has been a particular focus on increasing participation among lower-income groups. Similar programs in a number of other cities have aimed at engaging lower-income communities in bike share have also been implemented. The efforts have ranged from outreach conducted by the city and/or bike share operator, to innovative payment schemes, discounted pricing, education programs, marketing, community-based programming, and more. Both the focus on addressing equity in bike share and many of the programs and strategies deployed to do so are relatively new. As such, few resources discuss the menu of options, strategies and approaches, or the means of defining and measuring success for each of these efforts. The project team surveyed bike share programs around the country about what their approach was, what metrics for success they used (or would use in the future),

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