A Capital Bikeshare employee "rebalances" bikes
at a docking site near Union Station. Some past and
current employees claim they've been underpaid
by Portland-based Alta Bicycle Share.
(Photo © J. Maus/BikePortland)

It's been a rough few weeks for Alta Bicycle Share VP Mia Birk. The roll-out of the massive and high-profile Citibike system has by many measures been a huge success. But it has also been marred by public allegations of illegal labor practices in Washington D.C. and software glitches and poor customer service in New York City. This bad PR isn't new for Alta as they've come under fire in the past for delayed launches and last year a rival company accused them of unfair conduct while competing for a bikeshare contract in Chicago.

In Washington D.C., a former employee of Alta's Capital Bikeshare says he was underpaid and not given the health benefits he's due under federal contract law. Alta operates the Capital Bikeshare under contract with D.C.'s Department of Transportation. Here's an excerpt from a Washington Post story on May 6th: (more...)

Alta Bicycle Share principal Mia Birk explains
Portland's future system to possible sponsors
(Photo © J. Maus/BikePortland)

The Portland-based company that leads the nation in bikesharing just enjoyed its biggest launch yet, kicking off a 6,000-bike deal worth tens of millions of dollars over the next few years. And for Alta Bicycle Share, 2013 is only going to get more interesting.

Alta's system is planning to launch in Chicago in "late summer." San Francisco and the Bay Area are slated to join Alta's empire in August with 350 bikes, and Columbus will get a 300-bike fleet in July. Alta already operates systems in Washington, Boston, and now New York City, meaning the company's municipal bikeshare systems will be in five of the country's 10 biggest metro areas by year's end. Waiting in Alta's wings: Vancouver BC, Seattle, and of course Portland. (Atlanta and Philadelphia, two more top-10 metro areas, seem to be on their way to bikesharing, too, and Alta will be a strong contender.)

This sort of growth is huge for a company that's less than four years old -- and also risky for a company that just lost a top executive to a possible competitor and has had to weather serious technical delays and complicated labor issues in the middle of its rapid expansion.

So I decided to talk to two national bikesharing experts about Portland's locally-grown industry leader and the future of bikesharing in general. The two were Matt Christensen, managing editor of Bikeshare.com, a Santa Monica-based website that posts jobs and other news about the bikesharing industry; and Paul DeMaio, founder of DC-based bikeshare consulting firm MetroBike LLC, who's been publishing The Bike-sharing Blog for six years now.

Bikeshare.com's Matt Christensen and MetroBike LLC's Paul DeMaio.

Both of these guys were thoughtful, frank and upbeat in their assessment of where Alta and the concept of bikesharing are headed. The questions and answers below have been combined from separate interviews that covered many of the same subjects.

(more...)

Portland-based Alta Bicycle Share has done it again. They've been chosen to operate a 500 bike, 50 station bike share system in Seattle. The announcement was made today by Puget Sound Bike Share (PSBS). According to a press release, Alta will work with PSBS to plan, launch and sustain a bike share network that will launch in Seattle by spring 2014 and then expand throughout the Puget Sound region.

PSBS Executive Director Holly Houser wrote on the company's Facebook page today, "We have been and continue to be impressed with Alta’s approach to bike share and their ability to partner with cities and successfully deliver location-specific systems." (more...)

Getting real about the costs.
(Photos © J. Maus/BikePortland)

At its meeting tomorrow, Portland City Council is set to authorize the contract with Alta Bicycle Share for our forthcoming bike share system. In advance of that vote, the City has released new cost estimate numbers for the project.

Thanks to new numbers from Alta, we now have much more detailed estimates for both the launch and ongoing operational costs. According to Alta, it will cost $4,599,823 to launch the system (that's up from initial estimates of about $3.8 - $4 million). Those launch costs break down into $2,589,323 for 75 stations, $827,250 for 750 bicycles* and $1,183,250 to manage the launch. (more...)

Get ready Portland, it's coming!.
(Photos © J. Maus/BikePortland)

On Friday afternoon, the Portland Bureau of Transportation (PBOT) announced that Alta Bicycle Share had won the contract to operate the Portland Bike Share system. Given Alta's Portland headquarters, their success in nabbing major bike share projects around the country, and Birk's own close connections with the City of Portland (she used to run the City's bike program and her other company Alta Planning + Design is a frequent contractor), the decision wasn't a huge surprise.

But while Birk's company had a huge head start in the race for this contract, PBOT must have also been aware of the flood of headlines about software problems and delays that have dogged Alta Bicycle Share for the past few months.

To learn more from Alta's perspective, and to get an update on the issues underlying that publicity, I asked Birk a few questions via email... (more...)

(Photo © J. Maus/BikePortland)

Alta Bicycle Share, the spinoff of Portland-based Alta Planning + Design that has dominated bike-sharing headlines after securing a string of high-profile contracts in major U.S. cities is now getting a much different kind of publicity. Delays to system roll-outs in New York City, Chicago, Boston and Chattanooga have gotten national media attention and have raised questions about the company's ability to handle their growth. For their part, Alta acknowledges that the culprit in the delays is new software their partner Public Bike System Company (PBSC) is developing to handle the complex wireless transactions and rental processes at the bike share stations.

Alta uses the Bixi platform, which was developed by Montreal's municipal parking authority by the PBSC. The Bixi system is operated with software developed for them by 8D Technologies. As PBSC began to export the successful Bixi system around the globe, they continued to use the 8D software. But, when PBSC expanded into the U.S., 8D alleges that the company cut off ties and began to use a new software system developed by an American company (Alta only operates the system, they are not involved with the software development). 8D has sued PBSC for breach of contract and the two companies are still trying to work out their legal differences. (more...)

Promo photo from New York City Bike Share website.

Local staff of Southeast Portland-based Alta Bicycle Share are celebrating a huge victory this morning. New York City has formally announced that they've selected the company as the vendor for their massive 10,000 bike, 600 station New York City Bike Share system.

Officials estimate that bike share in New York City will lead to 27.5 million new bicycle trips every year.

New York City's system will dwarf Capital Bikeshare in Washington D.C. (also run by Alta Bicycle Share), which is currently the largest system in America with about 1,100 bicycles and 114 stations (Portland's plan is to have about 740 bikes and 74 stations). Bike share in New York City is expected to be similar to D.C.'s system because they'll use the same "Bixi" bikes (from Montreal) and the same vendor.
(more...)

A SmartBikeDC kiosk in D.C.
(Photos © J. Maus)

Alta Bicycle Share, sister company of Portland-based Alta Planning + Design, will operate the largest bike-sharing system in the United States when Washington D.C. expands their SmartBikeDC program into Arlington, Virginia later this year.

Plans announced today by D.C. Mayor Adrian Fenty and other regional officials say the system will launch with roughly 1100 bikes at 114 stations. D.C. was the first city in America to test the bike-sharing waters when they opened a few kiosks in April 2008. (more...)