Amid the COVID-19 pandemic, states and municipalities nationwide are recognizing the benefits of electric bicycles more than ever. Electric bicycles can help build sustainable communities that empower their citizens and better prepare them for disaster recovery. Electric bicycles produce low greenhouse gas emissions, are cheaper to own and maintain than a car and allow for individuals to commute to work safely and comfortably without worrying about the potential health risks of public transportation mid-pandemic.

Electric bicycle incentive programs are being seen as a key strategy to get bikes in the hands of those who need them the most — essential workers and low-income populations — and support communities across the U.S. as we work to recover from the effects of COVID-19 on our society and economy.

Colorado’s Can Do Community Challenge tested this strategy in the fall of 2020 by launching an electric bicycle pilot program in partnership with Bicycle Colorado, Northeast Transportation Connections, SloHi Bike Company, Monica Fitzgerald (Masters of Public Health researcher at the University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus) and The National Renewable Energy Lab. 13 low-income and essential workers in the Denver area were provided with free electric bicycles and accessories to demonstrate how electric bicycles are a safe, healthy and convenient way to make essential trips around town. 

The success of the program led to an upcoming statewide pilot in which the Colorado Energy Office will award $500,000 in grants to programs that increase access to electric bicycles for essential workers and low-income populations. 

Passed in 2019, California’s Clean Cars For All program follows a similar mission, allowing for low-income and disadvantaged households located in the Bay Area Air Quality Management District to trade in their used car for a $7,500 mobility voucher. This voucher can be used for the purchase of an electric bicycle, public transit or car-sharing program. A handful of other air quality management districts throughout California are looking to duplicate this program in their communities.

PeopleForBikes believes that electric bicycles are an important and necessary tool to support essential workers and low-income populations as communities nationwide work to recover from the COVID-19 pandemic. Incentive programs geared toward supporting these individuals will help bridge the economic barrier to owning an electric bicycle and allow communities to more readily benefit from their use.

Interested in more information regarding electric bicycle purchase incentive programs? Contact PeopleForBikes’ Regulatory and Policy Analyst Ashley Seaward at ashley@peopleforbikes.org.

Electric Bicycles as a Tool for Essential Workers and Low-Income Populations

Tucson, Arizona, a recipient of our 2020 COVID-19 Mobility Response Grant, used the funding to create an equitable Slow Streets program and build community through socially distanced events. 

Gabriela Barillas works as a livability planner for the Department of Transportation and Mobility in Tucson, Arizona. The fact that her position exists at all is a testament to the city’s commitment to creating systems that function for everyone. 

“I work with neighborhoods to see how we can make streets safer so people feel more comfortable using them,” said Barillas, noting that Tucson is one of the worst cities in the country when it comes to traffic fatalities. “Ultimately, we also want to reduce some single-occupancy vehicle trips and replace them with walking, biking or transit trips.”

Tucson, which boasts a population of more than half a million, is a border town that, according to the 2010 census, is about 41% Latino.

“Along with English, Spanish is definitely the predominant language,” said Barillas. “In terms of our land use, we are a typical sprawling city with a downtown core that's growing. We also have a really ugly history of highways dividing communities that were pushed out due to red-lining and other practices.”

For that reason, Barillas’ work maintains a strong commitment to equity, which only intensified when the pandemic hit. With support from the mayor and other community leaders, Tucson was able to track what neighborhoods were being hardest hit by COVID-19 and develop a responsive transportation plan. In June 2019, the PeopleForBikes Foundation offered a cash grant of up to $20,000 to support the local implementation of mobility networks that increased biking and walking as a response to the pandemic. Along with Fort Collins, Colorado, Tucson was chosen as a recipient of the grant.

With the funding, Tucson expanded its burgeoning Slow Streets program, using temporary equipment to close and slow traffic. Federal CARES Act funds were also allocated for permanent low-cost traffic calming improvements, such as speed humps and traffic circles. What Tucson managed to accomplish in just a couple of months is impressive: The Slow Streets program reached roughly 68,000 people across 15 neighborhoods, with a 75% increase in bicycle ridership.

A parent walks with their child in the middle of one of Tucson's new slow streets.

The Importance of Support from Leadership

Across the board, Tucson’s COVID-19 response was successful thanks to the support it received from leaders at every level. The political support from Mayor Regina Romero and the City Council were critical in jumpstarting the Slow Streets program, as well as funding the semi-permanent traffic calming improvements that followed. According to Barillas, council member Lane Santa Cruz stood out for her tireless championing of mobility justice.

"Crisis response presents a new set of opportunities to do things differently — so that's what we did,” said Santa Cruz, who pushed for the Slow Streets program and a community-centered funding framework for the allocation of Tucson’s CARES dollars. “Advocating for mobility justice, we acted on the opportunity to create safe retrofits in neighborhoods that had long been neglected and make public transit free during the pandemic."

Additionally, Barillas credits Tucson's success to leaders in the community who saw value in alternative mobility networks, including neighborhood ambassadors and local journalists that helped garner public support, as well as teachers that encouraged their students to get involved in the planning process.

Tucson received 121 applications from neighborhoods lobbying to be a part of the Slow Streets program, but due to the high-demand and limited funding, Tucson decided to focus its work in communities hit the hardest by the pandemic.

Other factors taken into consideration when choosing the 15 final locations were the need for traffic calming and the lack of infrastructure; heat vulnerability; safe connections to schools, parks and transit as well as community buy-in. By letting data drive its decisions, Tucson was able to target low-income areas where the resources would have the greatest influence.

Tucson’s Slow Streets fliers, in English and Spanish.

Tucson also chose to spend an additional $10,000 in communication support funding from PeopleForBikes on their marketing and outreach efforts. Money was used to print and distribute flyers promoting Slow Streets, in English and Spanish, as well as on paid, targeted social media outreach campaigns. Crucially, the city also piloted a neighborhood block leader model to distribute flyers to the communities along Slow Streets routes and collect feedback on the semi-permanent improvements. Not only did this approach create multiple opportunities for feedback from locals on how city streets can best serve them, but it also helped ensure that the permanent infrastructure was well received.

Overall, 45 block leaders were engaged across 15 neighborhoods, ranging in age from 16 to 85. In addition, Tucson organized 14 free mobile bike repair events where locals could get their bikes fixed and take home a free bike light. “The PeopleForBikes funding was critical when it came to community engagement and getting buy-in,” said Barillas. “I think we would have gotten a lot more angry calls if we hadn’t had the built-in group of champions we did.”

Tucson is continuing to use the federal funding it received through the CARES Act to carry out more semi-permanent improvements, which will average about $50,000 per location. For future projects, Barillas hopes to engage more local nonprofits and other community organizations, as well as translate materials into more languages to educate other immigrant populations. “One thing we’re really focusing on doing right now is adding more informational signage for the streets that identify traffic circles or bike lanes,” said Barillas. “Communicating why something was done, how it happened and the history behind it — that’s really important going forward.”

Read about our other 2020 COVID-19 Mobility Response Grant recipient, Fort Collins, Colorado.

Fort Collins, a recipient of our 2020 COVID-19 Mobility Response Grant, used the funding to beef up its existing bike network, as well as roll out an extensive marketing campaign.

Even in cities that boast substantial bike networks, there’s always more work to be done — especially during the pandemic, with Americans biking at unprecedented levels. Fort Collins, a university town in northern Colorado with a population of roughly 170,000, is an example of how smart spending can improve biking in a city that already invested in the necessary infrastructure.

In June 2020, the PeopleForBikes Foundation offered a cash grant of up to $20,000 to support the local implementation of programs designed to increase biking and walking as part of a community’s response to COVID-19. The hope was that these short-term pandemic efforts would lead to more permanent changes in local transportation networks. Tucson, Arizona and Fort Collins were both chosen to receive grants, proposing vastly different projects.

“We decided pretty early on that closing streets the way we were seeing in Denver and with other Slow Streets concepts was not going to fly in Fort Collins,” said Nick Heimann, an active modes specialist for the City of Fort Collins. “Instead, we looked at the robust system that we were already encouraging people to use for walking, bicycling and scooting on a regular basis, and decided to augment what was already there.”

Fort Collins opted to use grant funds to support the installation of approximately 126 permanent bicycle wayfinding signs along low-stress bikeways, as well as temporary wayfinding in the form of pavement stencils to fill in gaps across the city’s bike network. The bulk of Fort Collins’ efforts, however, focused on their Shift Your Ride campaign, a broader initiative encouraging residents to forgo single occupancy vehicle rides.

Heimann, who has a graduate degree in public health, was uniquely positioned to understand the role transportation could play in a pandemic. “I saw the pandemic as an explicit opportunity to focus on public health and its integration into our programs,” said Heimann. 

Since Fort Collins already had a robust trail system and a pervasive low-stress bike network, building more infrastructure didn’t necessarily make the most sense. According to Heimann, the city’s response to COVID-19 was less about providing the space for bicycling as it was encouraging people to get out and engage in physical activity in a safe way.

Community members used water-based paint to augment Fort Collins’ existing low-stress bike network.

In order to make its existing low-stress network more cohesive, Fort Collins focused on installing 126 permanent bicycle wayfinding signs along five destination-serving, citywide routes, as well as temporary wayfinding in the form of pavement stencils. The former helped build awareness for the city’s most popular routes at a time when more people were out biking, while the latter was a cost-effective way to fill in gaps in the city’s network and help users navigate less obvious connections.

“Before, our signs were definitely spaced too far apart for it to really seem like a truly cohesive network,” said Heimann. “The stencils were a low-cost, innovative solution that allowed us to pilot something with the intention of possibly scaling it up in the future.” 

Not only did the low price tag of water-based paint allow the city to gauge the public response before committing to permanent changes, but the bright neon green color helped generate awareness for the existing network among bicyclists, pedestrians and drivers alike. 

As part of the Shift Your Ride campaign, the city of Fort Collins introduced Bikeway Bingo.

In 2019, Fort Collins launched the Shift campaign, developed out of the Environmental Services Department and a desire to support its Climate Action Plan. The Shift campaign was based on individuals integrating small actions into their daily lives to help the community achieve broad environmental goals. When COVID-19 struck, it made sense to build on the program to encourage people to opt out of single-occupancy vehicle rides.

“We decided to narrow the campaign down to one singular action for 2020. Since we’re a platinum designated bicycle-friendly community, it made sense to encourage a shift in transportation,” said Heimann. “Shift” became “Shift Your Ride,” and a chunk of the PeopleForBikes Foundation grant, including an additional $10,000 for marketing and communications, went toward promoting it. 

September was deemed Shift Your Ride month and Fort Collins coordinated a robust campaign, including an accessible website, pandemic-safe events like “Bikeway Bingo” and the dissemination of regular “Shift Tips” — short, shareable videos recorded by community members.

“We also developed a pledge where community members can commit to going car free one extra trip per week than they were previously doing,” said Heimann. “Our goal is to have 1,500 community members sign the pledge by Earth Day 2021.”

So far, the campaign has been a success. To date, more than 500 people have signed the pledge and in September 2020 alone, more than 80,000 community members were reached through social media. “We have never reached that many people through just our social media channels, so that was really a significant win,” said Heimann.

Left: An example of one of the permanent signs installed by the city of Fort Collins, complete with Spanish translation. Right: One of the city’s temporary wayfinding signs, created using a stencil and water-based paint.

“I will fully admit that so many of us just didn't really understand what equity meant up until 2020 and George Floyd's murder,” said Heimann. “It became clear to us that as city staff, stewards of public resources, program designers and policy influencers, we really needed to put our money and our actions where our words were — if we were going to talk about equity we had to do something about it.”

In the Shift Your Ride campaign, Fort Collins explicitly made it a goal to ensure that of the 1,500 community members who take the pledge by Earth Day 2021, 500 will be from historically marginalized and typically under-resourced community groups. As talks of evolving audience segmentation and tailored messaging became commonplace, Fort Collins decided to pilot its efforts by targeting the Latinx community, which makes up the largest minority group in the city.

Using the grant funding, Fort Collins was also able to provide permanent, dual-language wayfinding signs to improve access for the city’s Spanish speakers. Even the temporary wayfinding stencil had an equity component: The image of a woman riding a cruiser-style bike drove home the point that bike networks are for all types of riders.

Postcards made and disseminated by the City of Fort Collins, in English and Spanish.

Fort Collins’ response to the pandemic was to pivot, leaning into its existing bike network and engaging locals. When it came time to install the temporary wayfinding signs, the city tapped volunteers from their Bicycle Ambassador Program to get out and do stenciling. “We wanted to make sure there were ways we could continue to bring in our regular volunteers,” said Heimann. 

The Shift Your Ride campaign was also undoubtedly a community effort, built around a public platform where folks could exchange ideas, download resources and hold one another accountable for helping to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Fort Collins was intentional about not singling out motorists, but instead emphasized the importance of making small, incremental changes. 

“We're going to continue to do great things for bicycling in Fort Collins,” said Heimann. “In the very same breath, we're going to be looking at other modes and other ways that we can get people to shift their ride.”

Read about our other 2020 COVID-19 Mobility Response Grant recipient, Tucson, Arizona.

The COVID-19 pandemic brought unexpected challenges to the health, livelihood and well-being of communities across the world last year. Working, shopping and getting around fundamentally changed amidst global efforts to control the spread of the virus.

Adapting to a “new normal,” people turned to the outdoors for exercise, mental relaxation and to help escape the stress caused by the new patterns of daily life. By May 2020, bicycling was one of the most popular forms of recreation and exercise in cities around the world.

Data collected by PeopleForBikes’ new Business Intelligence Hub mirrored the headlines — Americans were riding bikes at unprecedented levels, increased sales of bicycles left store shelves and bike shops critically low of inventory and cities were closing streets to make way for this surge in bicycling.

These insights proved useful as communities navigated the unique landscape that COVID-19 presented, but were often anecdotal and lacked the in-depth understanding of how riders and city leaders were responding to the changing constraints caused by the pandemic.

In response, PeopleForBikes launched two simultaneous studies at the end of 2020 to better understand how personal riding and purchasing habits changed during the pandemic, as well as what cities did to improve and create spaces for bikes and other forms of active transportation.  

Below are six research-based observations about how bicycling fared during the pandemic and what we can do to build momentum in 2021.

1. During the COVID-19 pandemic, 10% of American adults engaged with bicycling in a new way.

Since 2009, bicycling rates in the U.S. have been relatively stable, but 2020 saw a surge in bicycling rates across all demographics. Automated bike-counters, like those used by Eco-Counter, registered a significant increase in rides. 

Since March, 4% of the U.S. population (ages 18 and older) rode a bike for the first time in one or more years, or for the first time ever. An additional 6% participated in a different type of bicycling during the pandemic, trying indoor riding or riding their bike for transportation.

2. Approximately 200 U.S. cities changed the functionality of their streets to accommodate increased outdoor activity.

At the request of community members, local elected officials led the charge to change city streets as a way of promoting social distancing for those biking and walking. Overwhelmingly, 83% of cities indicated a high level of preparedness, asserting they had the necessary technical guidance and procedures in place to assist in implementing selected measures.

By June, however, city leaders began to reprioritize their efforts to support local businesses and restaurants. While these expanded measures — like slowing traffic and closing automobile lanes — did tangentially benefit cycling, fewer than half of cities advanced measures specifically designed to sustain increased levels of bicycling.

3. New riders were motivated to ride because they enjoy exercising and being healthy (56%), or found bicycling a fun, safe way to interact with others while remaining socially distanced (43%).

Before the pandemic, new riders indicated a lack of time (35%) as the primary reason why they weren’t riding bikes. However, when social distancing measures and stay-at-home orders were enacted, many needed a way to exercise, wanted to get out of the house or searched for ways to safely socialize with friends and family.

New riders were more likely to be motivated to ride by the socialization that bicycling offers (43%) compared to many existing riders (18%) who enjoy the solitude of riding their bike. Those who started riding during the pandemic were more likely than existing riders to engage with bicycling because bike rides offer stress relief (57%) and a way to relax (36%). 

4. In nearly half of American cities, a lack of community engagement jeopardized the success of measures taken to support biking during the pandemic.

Only 58% of cities engaged in a public input process before implementation of any measures, temporary or permanent, and few cities relied on any official planning documents or emergency preparedness policies to guide decision makers on the appropriate actions to take.

Nearly half of cities that implemented new projects faced vocal opposition to those changes. Of those cities, about one-third removed or significantly altered their projects in response to cited objections of inconveniencing drivers, failing to perform effective public outreach or interfering with business operations.

On average, cities were only able to complete two-thirds of the projects they publicly committed to creating in response to the pandemic.  

5. Those who started riding during the pandemic recruited others to ride and plan to stick with bicycling in 2021.

Compared to existing riders, new riders were more likely to invite their friends or family to join them for a bicycle ride during the pandemic. Those who were invited to ride were twice as likely to be a beginner or infrequent rider.  

In the coming year, new riders expect to continue riding. The majority of those new to indoor riding (75%), commuting by bicycle (75%), riding for recreation (73%) and riding for transportation (63%) plan to continue riding at least once per week in the coming year. 

6. 86% of cities consider the measures taken to support biking during COVID-19 as critical components of their future mobility or recreation networks.

Almost all cities (96%) reported increased levels of riding, prompting a renewed sense of optimism and necessity to make biking a part of future emergency preparedness plans, expanded recreational access policies and an essential component of every transportation network.

That optimism, however, is tempered by an uncertain future: 59% of cities advise that expected financial restrictions could result in staffing reductions, further limiting the ability to sustain or implement future measures supporting this work.

Download a summary of our research findings here.

Over the past year, we’ve all learned to do some of our favorite activities a little differently. Happy hours, game nights and even Thanksgiving dinners gone virtual have shown that even though we’re physically apart, it doesn’t mean we can’t spend time together. 

Just like all of your other favorite activities, biking is no different! To help you keep riding and sharing those rides with loved ones, we collected a few of our favorite ways to ride together even while we’re apart. 

We created Ride Spot not only to help break down the barriers to riding, but also as a platform to discover, create and best of all SHARE great bike rides.

Ride Spot’s “Ride Story” feature is the perfect way to capture all the fun and excitement of your favorite route and share it with those who weren’t able to come along for the ride. You can post a few photos, attach some text about what made the ride so great, and even build your ride to include turn-by-turn directions to help those you share it with navigate the route themselves. Great rides are meant to be shared, and Ride Spot is here to help.

Think you know your neighborhood like the back of your hand after a few rides around the block? Put your bike detective skills to the test and provoke a little friendly competition with your family or friends by creating your own bike scavenger hunt.

All you need is to establish your list of scavenger hunt items, hop on your bikes and the first rider to find all of the items on their list (or whoever finds the most items in a certain amount of time) wins! The number of items you can try to find is nearly endless: funky architecture, other people riding bikes, dogs (one of our personal favorites), silly yard decorations, wildlife, the list goes on.

For young riders, a scavenger hunt is also a great way to help develop navigation skills at an early age — can they find their school, neighborhood grocery store, fire station, local bike shop or their best friend’s house all on their bike? A scavenger hunt can even be fun for older riders — make a list of your favorite local restaurants, bars and coffee shops and see who can be the first to take a photo in front of all of them!

Photos above courtesy of Ride Spot Ambassador, Tina.

While we don’t recommend meeting up for big group rides with others outside your household, a family (or roommate) bike ride is a great way to get everyone out of the house and getting a breath of fresh air on two wheels. 

When riding with others, be sure to mask it up! Although the riders you’re with might be inside your “bubble,” having a mask handy to cover your nose and mouth when passing other riders on a busy path or stopped at a red light is courteous and the safest way to keep everyone healthy and riding.

Bike rides with your special someone are also a great alternative to your usual “date nights” that may have been put on hold due to COVID. Rather than a night out on the town, a bike ride to the grocery store to pick up ingredients for a meal you can cook together, riding a route passing all the spots you can’t wait to go back to, or even just a pedal around your local park are all great ways to spend time with your favorite person while out on two wheels.

How to Ride Together Even When We're Apart

At PeopleForBikes, we’re focusing our energy on maintaining the bike boom. As electric bicycles grow in popularity across the United States, they are becoming the preferred mode of transportation for many Americans in cities large and small. And for good reason: they shorten distances, squish hills and get you to your destination with ease and efficiency. 

In supporting this growing trend, some electric utility companies now offer rebates to their account holders for electric bicycle purchases. 

Burlington Electric Department and Other Utilities in Vermont

Four utility companies in the state of Vermont offer their customers rebates for electric bicycle purchases:

According to VBike, Green Mountain Power (Vermont’s largest utility company) has processed nearly 600 e-bike rebates this year — triple from last year. Even with snow cover nearly two-thirds of the year, it’s clear Vermonters see the advantages of getting around by electric bicycle. We asked Burlington Electric Department (servicing Burlington, VT) how its rebate program works, and how it came to be, so that we can help spread their message to other utility companies across the U.S. and increase access to electric bicycles.

In 2015, Vermont updated its renewable energy standards to direct utility companies in the state to “acquire fossil fuel savings from energy transformation projects.” Offering rebates for electric bicycles — along with tractors, heat pumps and more — falls within this broad charge. 

50% of emissions in the state of Vermont come from transportation. 

Burlington Electric Department was the first in the state to implement an electric bicycle rebate program and did so in partnership with nonprofits VBike and Local Motion. 

Burlington residents are eligible for a $200 rebate at the point-of-purchase at participating bike dealers in the city. 

BED calculated the price of the rebate by determining the cost of the fossil fuel that is expected to be replaced by the electric bicycle over the product’s lifetime.

Halfway across the country, the city of Austin, Texas’ energy utility company offers an electric bicycle rebate to its customers.

In 2015, the city of Austin passed a resolution to reach the goal netzero emissions by 2050 and make “Austin Energy (AE) the leading utility for greenhouse gas reductions.” 

AE took the initiative and started its E-Ride rebate program to make electric, netzero emissions transportation more accessible to Austinites.

In partnership with local dealers, AE customers are eligible for:
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AE customers have to submit a rebate form online to the company after purchasing the electric bicycle to receive their rebate.

 Have you used a utility-based rebate program (or something else) to help finance your electric bicycle purchase? We want to hear from you: email noa@peopleforbikes.org to share your experience. 

Topics

Biking During COVID-19

PeopleForBikes at Work on Biking During COVID-19

News

Electric Bicycles as a Tool for Essential Workers and Low-Income Populations

A Data-Driven Pandemic Response

Getting People to Shift Their Ride

How Bicycling Changed During A Pandemic

How to Ride Together Even When We're Apart

Electrifying the Bike Boom