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"Bicycle Loans

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https://www.unitusccu.com/personal/personal-loans/bicycle/

It's interesting -- the pricing structure makes it unattractive to tourists, but for regular users, it's cheaper to own your own bike. So who's going to use the bike shares?

Guess a viable business model is not the point. It's looking cool.

Exactly, Jack. "Viable business model" isn't what Portland's about anymore.

The pricing structure makes it unattractive for anyone but those going with the unlimited option ($95 per year), but there are a class of users that might consider the NYC scheme to be a good deal: Those who use transit to commute, may need a bike for errands while downtown, and who don't want to bring a bike on the bus or subway.

The first-hour-free, then you pay policy seems designed to discourage hoarding (i.e. renting a bike in the morning, and keeping it in the office with you all day).

That said, the pricing structure does seem a bit...weird.

With 600 docking stations throughout Manhattan and parts of Brooklyn, paying for going over a half-hour will be an infrequent experience.

Yeah. Until you get to a docking station that's full. Then you get to go look for another one.

I wonder what Portland's rates will be? Looking at what they're doing to limos and other non-cab services makes me wonder - a trip to the airport must be a minimum $50 charge, must wait for an hour after receiving a call to pick up a customer...apparently, non-cab services aren't "green" enough to be worthy of level competition.

On the other hand, when I have to fly, I rent a car in Beaverton, park at my house, load up in the morning, and drop the rental at the airport. Don't even have to pay for gas, 'cause the gauge still reads full.

Bike Share in Portland is about getting glossy photos in travel magazines and being on groovy lists about bike sharing, green travel, sustainable blah blah blah.

Seems to me if someone needs to do errands (especially in a small geographical footprint like PDX - you can get on a bus, on the light rail on the super slow street car or you can just &&(*&(*effing walk like normal people do.

More pathetic, money wasting, posing in PDX. Shameful when regular folks don't even have sidewalks. It will be a financial bust like everything else Portland does.

So according to that article, a transit trip in little old Portland basically costs as much as in Manhattan, a place with twice the average salary and cost of living.

TriMet is a bargain - two hours, $2.50 (at the new rates; it's actually cheaper now.)

And even at that amazingly LOW price, TriMet can only manage to attract less than 5% of the trips taken in the region. With bikes another 5% (many of those bikes fixer-uppers and thus obtained for next to nothing - I am amazed at how many bikes out there are actually fairly old!)

Why would anyone pay $10 or whatever to rent a bike, except for the two or three tourists that come to this city? And where are they going to ride to - the zoo? Kelly Point Park? Forest Park? Council Crest? Mt. Tabor? Rocky Butte? The Rose Garden?

At least Manhattan is flat...and the transit so incredibly crowded (and getting to the subway involves hiking DOWN flights of stairs.) They've got PDX beat.

BIKE SHARE - just say NO!!! Another really, really bad idea brought to you by people who know better than you. And when this turkey won't fly, then we'll just have to add/increase taxes to make sure it stays afloat (because it's SUCH a great idea). Gads the stupidity never stops.