(Photo © J. Maus/BikePortland)
The Portland City Council authorized the Bureau of Transportation to move forward with a search for a “request for proposals to solicit a private sector operator.”
The action by Council comes just days after PBOT launched their Portland Bike Share website. An interactive map launched as part of the site that allows anyone to suggest a rental station location has gotten a huge response.
In a statement released today, Portland Mayor Sam Adams said bike share, “will be a great addition” to Portland and that it’s a, “simple, attractive alternative to making quick trips by car.”
With $2 million in federal transportation funds already greenlighted for the project by Metro back in December, the City estimates it will need another $2 million or so from private sector partners to build and operate the system. PBOT expects the new system to be up and running by Spring 2013.
This isn’t the first time PBOT has put out a request for proposals (RFP) for a bike share vendor. They cancelled the previous attempt back in 2008 after officials said they needed do “do more analysis.”
In other bike share news, Portland-based Alta Bicycle Share (the bike share wing of Alta Planning + Design) nabbed another massive contract today. After being named vendor of choice for the New York City’s system back in September, the City of Chicago has also chosen Alta.
The next step for PBOT’s bike share project is to release the RFP. That’s expected to happen next week. Stay tuned.
— Browse past bike sharing coverage here.