Transportation Options Group and Bike Rental System with more Ambition at Cherriots

In the last decade or so the small group at Cherriots working on mode shifting has been called Rideshare, Trip Choice, and now for a year or so Commuter Options. (Maybe there are some other names also.) The group has too often seemed like an afterthought and ultimately was unfocused and underpowered.

Last night the Board for Cherriots received an Annual Report and also a short-term plan for 2023-2026. (Salem Reporter has more on the other agenda items.)

New Plan

There's a shift in tone and detail, and it looks promising. In the 2023-2026 Strategic Direction plan, they hope to "transform...from a static information-only to a responsive and integrated program...." Yes, that's the ticket!

Shift from passive to active

In one of the detail bullets they say they hope to "incorporate transportation options into local and regional transportation land use planning processes." These connections are conducted on the surface frequently, in language, but not very deeply in executed policy and actual decision.

Better integration and coordination
in transportation and land use planning

You might recall a national level study from 2017 that pointed out this very disconnection. "TDM staff [here, at Cherriots] have little interaction with the professionals who manage street design...and parking policy, even though those departments play an enormous role in travel behavior...[all approaches] must be aligned to bring about meaningful change." It is incoherent to be widening roads, indirectly subsidizing driving in this way, at the same time we ask for more walking, rolling, and transit for climate and safety.

Demand Management siloed from Public Works

There is lots of opportunity to beef up plans and improve coordination. This looks promising.

Previously see:

• "Cherriots Board to see new Rideshare Strategic Plan" (2015)
  
• "Local MPO to Receive Annual Report on Cherriots Rideshare Tuesday" (2016)
  
• "New Cherriots Trip Choice Work Plan in Shadow of SRC and Autoist Priorities" (2017)
• On that national report, "Demand Management Report Shows Disconnect with Public Works" (2017)
  
• On one of those local plans for the City of Salem, "Acquaint Yourself with the TDM Element of the TSP" (2018)
• And at the MPO, "Reviewing Chapter 4 of the draft 2023 MTP, and a Digression on TDM" (2022)
  

Parks toy, in Riverfront Park (2019)

The annual report also has a summary on a project to evaluate a reboot of a public bike rental system.

Evaluating the possibility of a restart

Cherriots would be the right home for it.

This summer at Slate, "Why Lyft Is Running From Bicycles":

Bike share is a tough business, as any micromobility company could tell you, and new Lyft CEO David Risher has deemed it a distraction. The Wall Street Journal reported late last month that Lyft is seeking buyers for its bike-share division, something the company awkwardly failed to deny in a subsequent statement citing “strong inbound interest” in its bikes and scooters business....

There has always been reason to doubt Lyft’s stewardship of urban bike share. Cycle-hire programs like Citi Bike are, at their best, an extension of existing public transit systems. Public transport takes many forms but at its most basic level is a government-led effort to provide affordable, reliable, and accessible transportation to large numbers of people. Doing this is not typically profitable, as evidenced by the fact that most public transit systems in major global cities lose money by design. Passenger fares tend to cover only a fraction of operating costs, with the rest coming from taxes and government subsidies....

In my ideal world, these systems would be absorbed by their local transport agencies and seamlessly integrated into public systems...

The stuttering activity of bike rental systems here over the last few years also suggest areas for improvement:

• If we want the bikes to be more than a parks toy, something to use on our streets and a real part of any "last mile" connectivity or a real tool for short errands, we need better bike lanes downtown.
• We also need more stations. The station at Amtrak was hyped as a way to get home, but without more stations for dropping off the bike at trip-end, that's hardly convenient. For round trips and start and end, you need a bike to get to the station also.
  

Not really

For all previous notes on the public bike rental system, see here, in particular these notes:

• "Is Salem ready for Bikeshare? Corvallis could be Template" (2016)
• "What should we Expect from a Public Bikes Program?" (2018)
• "Ride Salem looks to Shut Down" (2022) 
• And at Streetsblog, "Why We Should Stop Using the Word ‘Micromobility’"