Jump and Lime offering electric bike share during Aerial Tram closure

E-bikes from Jump and Lime ready to roll in South Waterfront this morning.
(Photo: Armando Luna)

Two private bike share companies have set up tiny pilot programs to help Oregon Health and Science University (OHSU) cope with a five-week closure of the Aerial Tram.

Lime app showing location of available bikes.

Jump Bikes started offering rides on 15 of their electric-assist bikes today and Lime is scheduled to turn on their bikes Wednesday. OHSU Transportation Options Coordinator John Landolfe told us today that the bikes are available free for 45 minutes and are only for people with an official OHSU email address (staff and students) and selected contractors, vendors, volunteers, and temporary employees*. Both companies expect to have 30 bikes available by the end of this week. (*Note: A reader says he was able to use one of the Lime bikes today without an OHSU account.)

In total there are now four different bike share options available to OHSU commuters during the tram closure. Biketown (open to anyone) has installed a temporary station with 18 bikes at the Schnitzer Lot (SW Moody and Sheridan) and Go By Bike Share (run by the same folks who do the bike valet) is another option for those with an OHSU email.

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Keep in mind if you use the Jump or Lime bikes, they aren’t set up to be dockless. That means you can’t just lock them up anywhere and you must return them to one of the three Go By Bike valet locations: the Schnitzer Lot, the Whitaker Lot (SW Whitaker St, one block east of the Center for Health and Healing), or up on Marquam Hill at the OHSU Student Center.

PBOT spokesman Dylan Rivera Jump and Lime were able to offer the bikes without a city permit because the trips start and end on OHSU property. “It operates as any fleet of vehicles would,” he shared with us via email today. “Therefore does not require a permit from PBOT, as private for hire transportation would.”

Interesting side note: Portland’s Biketown system is operated by Motivate Inc., which was recently reported to be in acquisition talks with ride-sharing giant Lyft. The bikes used in the Biketown system were made by a company that has since re-branded as Jump, which is owned by Uber. And then there’s Lime, a company that’s drooling over the prospect of launching dockless e-bikes and scooters in Portland. Hopefully this tiny pilot gives PBOT some good insight into how our bike share offerings should evolve in the future.

Learn how to sign up and find out more at GoByTram.com/bikeshare.

— Jonathan Maus: (503) 706-8804, @jonathan_maus on Twitter and jonathan@bikeportland.org

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Jonathan Maus (Publisher/Editor)

Jonathan Maus (Publisher/Editor)

Founder of BikePortland (in 2005). Father of three. North Portlander. Basketball lover. Car owner and driver. If you have questions or feedback about this site or my work, feel free to contact me at @jonathan_maus on Twitter, via email at maus.jonathan@gmail.com, or phone/text at 503-706-8804. Also, if you read and appreciate this site, please become a supporter.

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Todd Boulanger
Todd Boulanger
5 years ago

Jonathan thanks for the interesting update. And what a wicked web of corporate ownership and partnerships in bike share now…who knew?!

Andrew Kreps
Andrew Kreps
5 years ago
Reply to  Todd Boulanger

And a cute map to boot. 🙂

Ray Atkinson
5 years ago

“Keep in mind if you use the Jump or Lime bikes, they aren’t set up to be dockless. That means you can’t just lock them up anywhere and you must return them to one of the three Go By Bike valet locations: the Schnitzer Lot, the Whitaker Lot (SW Whitaker St, one block east of the Center for Health and Healing), or up on Marquam Hill at the OHSU Student Center.”

How are Jump and Lime ensuring their bikes are returned to one of the three valet locations? Is there a fee for parking outside of these locations? Since Jump and Lime don’t have a permit to operate in the public right-of-way, will they be fined if their bikes are parked in the public right-of-way?

Kiel Johnson / Go By Bike
Member
Reply to  Ray Atkinson

Yes, there is a pretty hefty fee.

Buzz
Buzz
5 years ago

Hey, bring on the dockless bikes and scooters! They can’t get here soon enough, the streets are already littered with lyft and uber vehicles!

DSJK
DSJK
5 years ago
Reply to  Buzz
Tom
Tom
5 years ago
Reply to  DSJK

eScooters have wide popularity, especially with those who for various reasons don’t want to ride a bike. If you are waiting for everyone to adopt your own person method of transportation, then you will be waiting for a very very long time. Reducing motor vehicle VMT will require a variety of options to appeal to a large enough group of people to make an impact. Not every option works for every persons needs are we should be careful with protectionist attitudes that automatically exclude the needs and options of others. Every shared transportation mode has startup issues and in this case the issues have relatively easy solutions that can be delta with by partnership with the city.

bikeninja
bikeninja
5 years ago
Reply to  Tom

People thought the game of, ” Lawn Darts” was a good idea too. Sometimes the universe has other plans.

Hello, Kitty
5 years ago
Reply to  bikeninja

Dart War might have been a bit dangerous in retrospect, but it was a hell of a lot of fun at the time.

Racer X
Racer X
5 years ago
Reply to  Tom

The critical question for PBoT & CoP, will e-scooters be all that useful as a transport mode [and safe] once the rains arrive. I doubt it. I would hope that any future contract [if done] would clear the sidewalks of them in the off season and set minimum safety thresholds for a municipal franchise contract.

Buzz
Buzz
5 years ago
Reply to  Racer X

And it doesn’t rain in San Francisco? News to me!

Lisa Conners
Lisa Conners
5 years ago
Reply to  Tom

your points are good, but difficult to read through. Suggest reread your opinion for run on sentences and misspelled words prior to posting.

Gary B
Gary B
5 years ago
Reply to  DSJK

What fear am I supposed to take away from those articles? One says that scooters are a symbol of gentrification. Ok, fine, but I’d rather we worry about the actual harms of gentrification than the symbols. And they sometimes get left on sidewalks? LOL. Sure, but it’s a whole lot easier to move one of those then the cars that often block sidewalks.

Michal
Michal
5 years ago
Reply to  DSJK

Sorry but the situation on the ground where scooters are deployed is nothing like what those click-bait opinion ‘news’ pieces are describing. This is the fastest consumer adoption we have seen of a physical product, maybe ever. There’s not enough scooters to satisfy demand in most markets yet.

Alex Reedin
Alex Reedin
5 years ago
Reply to  DSJK

My hot take is that E-scooters are good in theory, BUT they need a place to park! (that’s not on the sidewalk). If the City wants to allow them, the City needs to change some car-parking spaces into scooter piles.

Hello, Kitty
5 years ago
Reply to  Alex Reedin

Just set them gently in an on-street parking spot. Should be fine.

soren
soren
5 years ago
Reply to  Alex Reedin

the same thing can be said about bikes. i lock up my bike to poles, fences, and other miscellaneous objects far more than i do to an actual bike rack.

Eric Leifsdad
Eric Leifsdad
5 years ago

So if OHSU bought a parking spot in Hillsdale, Multnomah Village, etc…

Kyle Banerjee
5 years ago

Aside from the e-bikes, OHSU has free bike share for employees. Also not dockless, but better than BikeTown because you can use them all day if you want and the bikes are normal weight. They make it reasonable to run errands in town if you don’t want to lock your normal rig in a public space.

Note that the free 45 minutes for the e-bikes is getting 45 minutes of credit. It’s not like they’re perpetually free (like the regular share bikes) and you get 45 minutes each time you use them.

People who don’t normally ride the hill might just give it a shot on their regular bike rather than assume they need an e-bike. Because of the logistics of picking up and dropping off the bike, even a relatively slow rider is likely to be faster door to door. It really doesn’t take that much time, and if you do the climb, you may well find that it’s a lot easier than you imagined.

One of the curious effects of the tram so far has been to make traffic easier than normal, at least for me. Yesterday, I was able to bomb down Sam Jackson at 5pm full bore all the way to the last curve before the light — something I normally can do only a few times a year as I almost always get stuck behind drivers who take the descent slowly. Traffic seemed unusually light going up as well.

Cpt. Obvus
Cpt. Obvus
5 years ago
Reply to  Kyle Banerjee

Yep. Riding up Terwilliger is not hard. But riding up Campus Drive is harder. Therefore, one could just ride Terwilliger then hop off and lock up at Casey Eye.

Kyle Banerjee
5 years ago
Reply to  Cpt. Obvus

This solution allows people to use elevators and walk through buildings which significantly shortens total distance and mitigates speed differentials between cycling and walking. It might even be faster for slower riders.

What most people think of as the main floor of the hospital is on the 9th floor. Taking the elevator eliminates the need to climb in one of the steeper areas.

Jennifer Smith
Jennifer Smith
5 years ago
Reply to  Cpt. Obvus

I agree that it’s Campus Drive that breaks the deal for a casual cyclist. I’m a year-round bicycle commuter and just don’t like getting to work out-of-my-mind sweaty and winded (and am too lazy to build in shower time). As my tweet conveys, I am thrilled to use the e-bike option.

Andy K
Andy K
5 years ago
Reply to  Cpt. Obvus

Disagree. Riding up Terwilliger daily is hard or impossible for the average person, but e-assist makes it possible.

Cpt. Obvus
Cpt. Obvus
5 years ago
Reply to  Andy K

Hmm. Depends on how quantifiably healthy the “average person” is (betcha someone at OHSU can say), and maybe how the “average person’s” bike is defined (gear ratios, weight, etc.).

soren
soren
5 years ago
Reply to  Cpt. Obvus

my “interested but concerned” partner rides ~4 times a week year round. i cajoled her into climbing terwilliger once and she told me that she will never do this again.

Stephen Keller
Stephen Keller
5 years ago
Reply to  Kyle Banerjee

Terwillager past OHSU and on to Capital is, by far the easiest climb I’ve found to get from N. Portland to the west side. I’d use it a lot more often if it weren’t also the longest route.

Stph

Paul Frazier
Paul Frazier
5 years ago

Eric Leifsdad
So if OHSU bought a parking spot in Hillsdale, Multnomah Village, etc…Recommended 2

Or if people volunteered to let them be parked on their lawn or driveway? 😉 or business allowed them to be parked in their parking lots?

I mostly joke.

Downtown would be an issue though. Although lots of private surface lots.

Brad
Brad
5 years ago

Be careful if you’re an OHSU employee using a Lime bike. When you install the app, it doesn’t ask for your email address, just your phone number. You need to take the additional step of verifying your OHSU email before they will give you your free 45 minutes per ride. I found this after borrowing the bike to get up Marquam Hill and seeing the charge on my credit card. Lime says they will not refund any charges, even retroactively.

bendite
bendite
5 years ago

*low powered moped.

columbo
columbo
5 years ago

you can’t just lock them up anywhere and you must return them to one of the three Go By Bike valet locations: the Schnitzer Lot, the Whitaker Lot (SW Whitaker St, one block east of the Center for Health and Healing), or up on Marquam Hill at the OHSU Student Center.

Interestingly enough, it seems like this isn’t necessarily true. Looking at the Lime app right now I see several parked bikes along SW 3rd up by Sheridan, a few more down at the end of SW Bond by the Old Spaghetti factory, etc.

PBOT spokesman Dylan Rivera Jump and Lime were able to offer the bikes without a city permit because the trips start and end on OHSU property.

Seems like bikeshare is operating on public property after all, lol.