Employees of Shift Transit, the company that operates Portland’s Biketown bike share system say they were given an order to chop 400 bikes in half with a table saw and throw them away.
The allegation was shared with BikePortland anonymously because the workers say they’ve been threatened with legal action if they speak out.
Lyft, the company behind Biketown, hired Shift Transit in March 2023 to operate the bike share system. Shift Transit refers to themselves as a “leader in bike share services” and manages 60,000 bicycles, scooters and other vehicles in 10 cities across America.
11 days ago a Shift Transit employee messaged BikePortland on Instagram with a troubling allegation. The employee said one worker was told to “throw away 400 bikes that could be donated or at the very least recycled for aluminum.” The worker allegedly chopped the bikes in half with a table saw and left them in a pile — even after telling their boss they felt doing so made them uncomfortable and went against their code of ethics.
“[The worker] was told they don’t have a choice,” our tipster said.
The Portland Bureau of Transportation hasn’t responded to a request for comment and I’ve so far been unable to contact Shift Transit’s Biketown general manager.
Asked to respond to the allegation, Lyft shared this statement:
“The local operations team recently decommissioned some damaged and unusable bikes. The team ensured that usable parts were salvaged for reuse, and parts that could not be reused were recycled where possible, while some parts had to be scrapped.”
That statement differs from the allegations from the Shift Transit employee (who also said they’re currently involved in a labor dispute with the company over unrelated issues).
“It’s pretty shitty they’re just throwing the bikes away, unwilling to recycle,” the employee shared. “Basically, it’s PBOT money getting wasted and all the workers are pissed about it.”
It’s unclear why bikes were decommissioned or destroyed. They could have outdated hardware or other issues that Lyft has deemed would be more expensive to fix than repair. It might also have something to do with what appears to be a new version of Biketown bikes that are about to hit the streets. Today on the BikeLoud PDX Slack channel I came across a graphic of what appears to be a new Biketown model that’s significantly different than the second generation models we have now. The photo shows a grey bike that’s known as Lyft’s “Cosmo” version currently used in New York City.
In 2021, when PBOT had a large number of outdated, first-generation Biketown bikes gathering dust in a warehouse, they opted to donate them to a bike share system in a city in Canada.
I’ll update this post if/when I can confirm any further details.
