*At this week’s Bay Wheels announcement, Clarrissa Cabansagan of SVBC addressing audience.*

Clarrissa Cabansagan is Executive Director of Silicon Valley Bicycle Coalition

This week Silicon Valley Bicycle Coalition joined with the Metropolitan Transportation Commission, the City of San Jose and the Lyft bike share company to announce major enhancements to the Bay Area’s Bay Wheels regional bike share program that expand the program and bring down prices. We could not be more excited about the opportunities for mobility this brings to Silicon Valley residents and workers.

The announcement marks a culmination of more than a decade of work by bike advocates in supporting better bike share in our region. We at SVBC look forward to working with the San Jose and Lyft to identify locations for the new stations, particularly in East San Jose where we have been deepening our relationships with grassroots partners on their bike needs. We are so thrilled to help expand the reach of electric mobility options eastward.

The upgrades make the bike share system in San Jose much more approachable and user-friendly. Since Bay Wheels started operating in San Jose, SVBC has partnered with them for rides, to conduct outreach for their Bikeshare for All discount program, and with San Jose State University and affordable housing organizations to spread the word about the bike share program.

In the San Jose area alone:

The bike share expansion will include 650 new electric Bay Wheels bikes and 21 new stations.
As of Nov. 3, the cost of an annual Bay Wheels membership has dropped to $150 from $169 and the cost for members to use a Bay Wheels e-bike to 15 cents per minute from 20 cents. Next year MTC will launch a pilot program to provide reduced-cost annual memberships for Bay Area college students.

Regionally, the public investment adds more than 2,000 next-generation e-bikes and the rollout of 55 additional docking stations for the Bay Wheels fleet in San Jose, San Francisco, Oakland, Berkeley and Emeryville.

SVBC has long pressed for racial equity to be front and center of bike share expansion in the Bay Area. Bike Share for All — the region’s low-income discount program — was the collective effort of city staff, MTC, bike coalition advocates, and grassroots groups working with the private sector. Bike Share for All has since become the backbone for all shared mobility access programs nationwide.

*Smooth rolling*

*SVBC looks forward to working with the City of San Jose and Lyft to identify locations for the new stations, particularly in East San Jose, to help expand the reach of mobility options.*

SVBC’s equity outreach during the initial launch of bike share in 2017, in partnership with San Jose State University and low-income housing organizations, enabled San Jose to command up to 80 percent low-income ridership on our Bay Wheels system — likely the highest low-income ridership rate in the country. San Jose has been a leader in low-income access on bike share in large part due to our advocacy and outreach efforts at every step in the process. We aim to continue and improve on that trend with the expansion.

Expansion of Bay Wheels’ e-bike fleet will begin this week in San Jose and San Francisco, with the addition of e-bikes to Bay Wheels locations in Oakland, Berkeley and Emeryville expected to begin in the coming months, pending local approval. E-bikes’ ability to climb hills, travel longer distances, and attract riders of varying physical abilities have made them a transformational mobility option for Bay Area residents and visitors alike.

For further details, see the MTC announcement.

MTC is the transportation planning, financing and coordinating agency for the nine-county San Francisco Bay Area. Launched in 2017, Bay Wheels is the Bay Area’s regional bike share program with over 6,000 bicycles — both pedal-powered and pedal-assist electric bikes — at more than 500 stations in San Jose, San Francisco, Oakland, Berkeley and Emeryville. Lyft operates the Bay Wheels program under a contract managed by MTC. SVBC is a non-profit organization working to build healthier and more just communities by making bicycling safe and accessible for all.