Grants

Round 3 Challenge Grantees

Just Ride — Equitable Mobility for Holy Spokes: $50,000

Charleston, SC

Enough Pie is partnering with the City of Charleston, Gotcha Bike and Charleston Moves to extend bike share into the Upper Peninsula of the city. In addition to adding stations and hiring local ambassadors, the program will align and partner with AWAKENING: MOTION, a series of public art project that aims to transform the streets by showcasing what’s possible when communities unite to create safe, connected, dignified transportation.

Better West Side Bike Share: $28,000

Chicago, IL

West Town Bikes will recruit, hire and train 30 youth from neighborhoods bordering the 606 Trail to serve as Trail Ambassadors and develop speaking, presentation and leadership skills. Ambassadors will engage in community outreach and education, provide assistance to trail users, encourage use of the trail and of Divvy Bike Share, and provide information about Divvy and program memberships at local events as part of their 10-week program.

Community Organizing & Engagement for a Regional MoGo Hub: $35,000

Detroit, MI

MoGo, Detroit’s public bike share system, is partnering with Live6 Alliance, the City of Detroit, and the City of Ferndale to engage residents in Northwest Detroit and southern Oakland County in the creation of a regional bike share hub. The partnership will include working with community organizers and Neighborhood Ambassadors to bring residents, business owners and community leaders together in developing a shared vision for bike share while building support for expanding this mobility service beyond greater Downtown Detroit.

Better Bikeshare from the Start: $27,500

Ithaca, NY

Bike Walk Tompkins – the active transportation program of Ithaca Carshare – will collaborate with community partners to hire and train five Ithaca Bike Champions to conduct outreach and education before, during and after the launch of a dockless bike share system in April 2018. The Champions will both support programming in focus communities and also share feedback on how the system works in those communities to refine and improve operations. One outcome is a set of shared operational expectations around reaching and serving residents in low-income neighborhoods.

Blue Bikes for All: $55,000

New Orleans, LA

Bike Easy will focus on the 7th Ward and Central City neighborhoods, and on workers in the hospitality industry, as part of their efforts to introduce bike share to low- and moderate-income people and people of color in areas where transportation options are most needed. The program will work with partner community organizations and local employers to host rides, offer free trial passes and reduced fare passes, and conduct workshops and presentations – and to pilot other ideas as they emerge.

Healthy Ride in Your Neighborhood: $65,000

Pittsburgh, PA

Healthy Ride will recruit, hire and train Neighborhood Ambassadors to implement learn-to-ride classes, registration events at local businesses and partnership organizations, group rides, and targeted neighborhood marketing as part of their initiative in the Homewood, Larimer and Hill District neighborhoods. New stations serving these locations will make bike share use easier and more accessible, and will help build on the ConnectCard transit integration launched in Fall 2017.

Research Grants 2018-19

Freedom from the Station: Spatial Equity in Access to Dockless Bike Share: $71,881

Drexel University, Philadelphia, PA

The research team at Drexel University will examine the spatial equity in dockless bike share – the equitable distribution of bike share bikes across the geographical boundaries of Seattle, WA – and the role that redistribution plays in this equity. Working with the City of Seattle, the University of Washington/Washington State Transportation Center, and dockless bike share operators, researchers will both measure equity in spatial access and seek to translate Seattle’s experience into recommendations for equitable approaches for dockless bike share systems in other cities.

National Assessment of Bike Share Equity Programs: $74,801

Portland State University, Portland, OR

Portland State’s research team will document the programs and strategies developed to address equity in bike share across the U.S., and identify the definitions and measures of success for each of these efforts. The result will be a catalog of equity approaches employed, an aggregated summary of key elements of each approach or strategy, and a record of which metrics agencies used to assess if they are meeting their equity goals , along with the various ways agencies are assessing their programs.

Round 2 Challenge Grantees

Atlanta Westside Bike Share Champions: $67,000

Atlanta, GA

The Atlanta Bicycle Coalition is partnering with the City of Atlanta, Cyclehop, WeCycle, Urban Perform and Red, Bike & Green Atlanta to create a bike share champion program that provides pathways to employment while building a strong base of bike share users in Atlanta’s westside neighborhoods.

Movimiento en Bici: $41,000

Basalt, CO

In conjunction with its expansion beyond Aspen to the town of Basalt, WE-cycle will collaborate with the Valley Settlement Project and other local partners to provide access to bike share as a link between transit, employment centers, neighborhoods and recreation areas. Additionally, the program will offer subsidized membership, a Spanish language helpline, bike safety and riding classes, community outreach and a process for continuous feedback and improvements.

Hubway Master Plan: $10,000

Boston, MA

Boston Bikes has been a leader in placing gender, income and race equity at the forefront of its bike share priorities. With this funding, the system will invest in a long-term business plan to guide system expansion so it balances reach, ridership and revenue throughout the Boston area.

Better Bike Share in Brooklyn: $75,000

Brooklyn, NY

Bedford Stuyvesant Restoration Corporation will expand their efforts to promote the use of bike share through a 3-pronged approach that includes community engagement activities and events, promotion of discounted and employer-subsidized memberships, and policy recommendations. They will leverage strong partnerships with Citi Bike, New York City Departments of Health and Transportation, other community-based organizations in Brooklyn, as well as local employers including Interfaith Medical Center and Woodhull Medical Center.

Downtown LA Bike Ambassadors: $75,000

Los Angeles, CA

Working with partners Multicultural Communities for Mobility, the City of Los Angeles Department of Transportation and LA Metro, the Los Angeles County Bicycle Coalition will conduct surveys, interviews, community outreach and engagement in order to further define and refine equity goals and strategies to guide the bike share system as it expands beyond the downtown pilot.

Whistling Wheels: $64,000

Milwaukee, WI

The Housing Authority of the City of Milwaukee, together with Bublr Bikes and DreamBikes, will provide assistance, encouragement, and events to promote the use of bike share within two public housing developments and the surrounding neighborhoods. Programing will include neighborhoods rides and demonstration sessions at Bublr Bikes stations. A key goal of this grant-funded work is to provide guidance on collaborating with public housing programs.

Sending Our Roots Deeper- 2016 Urban Outreach: $50,000

Minneapolis, MN

Nice Ride will strengthen and expand partnerships with community-based organizations centered in the African American, Hmong, Latino, Native American, and LGBTQ communities in Minneapolis and St. Paul through neighborhood rides, listening sessions, bike repair events, bike share demonstrations, games and events. As one of the more mature systems in the U.S., Nice Ride’s experience and efforts will provide critical guidance to newer programs.

East Bay Bike Share Membership Roadshow: $75,000

Oakland and Berkeley, CA

TransForm’s history of deep community engagement will help them work with Bike East Bay, the Cities of Oakland and Berkeley, the Metropolitan Transportation Commission, Alameda-Contra Costa Transit District, and Motivate to navigate the challenges of encouraging ridership among people traditionally underrepresented in bike share. This grant will leverage other investments to educate residents about the system, encourage use, and advocate for stations in specific neighborhoods. TransForm and partners will also establish a bike share Equity Fund to provide free low-income memberships especially to those affected by growing displacement pressures.

Portland’s Grass Roots Approach to Bike Share: $75,000

Portland, OR

From the July launch of Portland’s BIKETOWN system, the Community Cycling Center will provide grassroots outreach and education to Portlanders living on low incomes. In addition to providing very low-cost memberships through workshops, they will also use community feedback to improve and guide the system through launch and its first year of implementation.

Round 1 Challenge Grantees

Austin Bike Share Equity Project: $50,000

Austin, TX

Austin B-cycle will use this grant award to address barriers of cost, safety, comfort with bicycling, and language through a bilingual outreach and education campaign along with subsidized membership and cash payment options. A report with best practices on implementing a fully bilingual bike share system is one key deliverable of this project.

Boston Bikes Hubway Equity Project: $51,760

Boston, MA

Boston Bikes will build on their successful membership subsidy program and Prescribe-a-Bike collaboration with the Boston Medical Center to reach more diverse city residents with the help of this grant funding. Expansion of these two programs will join with plans to understand, reinforce and replicate the system’s best referral sources, align with other Boston Bikes programs, and develop more effective peer marketing tools through storytelling.

Building Up Bike Share in Bedford Stuyvesant: $75,000

Brooklyn, NY

The Bedford Stuyvesant Restoration Corporation (Restoration) will capitalize on Citi Bike’s addition of 26 stations to their neighborhood with several targeted interventions to increase use. Restoration will focus their grant funding on tailored community outreach, education about riding bicycles and using bike share, membership promotion campaigns, and integration with other community services to introduce more Bedford Stuyvesant residents to bike share.

Washington, DC

The District of Columbia’s Department of Transportation (DOT) will strengthen and expand its network of local community service organizations as ambassadors for Capital Bikeshare with this grant award. In addition to initiating partnerships and developing best practices based on previous community partner experiences, the DOT will also create resources including a training curriculum and manual, multi-lingual demonstration video on how to use bike share, new member kits, and an ambassador network that links and supports community partners.

Charlotte B-cycle Free Wheelin’ Fridays: $20,000

Charlotte, NC

Charlotte B-cycle is working with an extensive roster of community partners to help people from neighborhoods across the city try using bike share for their Friday morning commutes. This targeted program will use experienced riders, incentives, and origination points in communities with less bike share use to boost ridership.

Divvy for Everyone: $75,000

Chicago, IL

The Chicago Department of Transportation (DOT) is using their award and match funding from BlueCross BlueShield of Illinois to implement a citywide program of subsidized memberships and facilitated enrollment through the Local Initiatives Support Coalition (LISC) – Centers for Working Families. Chicago DOT will also partner with Slow Roll Chicago on targeted outreach, education and engagement in the Southside neighborhood of Bronzeville along with general outreach and engagement citywide.

For more information on the Better Bike Share Partnership grants, contact Zoe Kircos, Grant Manager at PeopleForBikes, at zoe@peopleforbikes.org