Editorial: City must monitor Biki’s operations

Six years ago, cyclists were invited to decorate their bikes and wear holiday-season attire for an inaugural ride along the King Street bike lane, staged shortly before the annual Honolulu City Lights tree-lighting event.

The “Cycle Track” pilot program proved the two-mile lane — Oahu’s first protected bike lane — as effective in both improving safety and increasing bicycle ridership. It also helped pave a path for the rollout of Biki, Honolulu’s first major bikeshare rental operation.

It’s encouraging that bikesharing is now viewed as a key component in the city’s multimodal transportation strategy, which aims, in part, to get more gas-guzzling vehicles off roadways and promote “green” alternatives. But a recent city audit of the Biki public-private partnership shines needed light on shortcomings in accountability and transparency.

The audit found that the city Department of Transportation Services (DTS) has failed to effectively track operational and fiscal performance of the bikeshare program, which launched 3-1/2 years ago with $2 million in startup funds from the city and state — along with many city exemptions to support nascent operations.

Given that the city’s continued backing of this program hinges on mutually beneficial outcomes, it’s unacceptable that DTS came up empty-handed when asked to provide the auditor with documentation for key contract-control requirements. Those include various financial reports as well as inspection and equipment records and documents for expansion requests.

In addition to rightly calling for much-tighter program monitoring, the audit sensibly recommends pursuing possible opportunities for the city to secure a share in revenues. With some $5.6 million in Bikeshare revenue collected between fiscal years 2017 and 2019, the program and its ridership success figures are clearly growing past the proof-of-concept phase.

The current inventory includes some 1,300 bikes and 130 docking stations — using public spaces on city streets, sidewalks and metered parking spaces for free. The estimated city revenue loss from the replacement of metered stalls with Biki Stops totaled upwards of $300,000 in 2019.

Moving forward, as more “mobility providers” seek deals to set up shop here, the City Council and Mayor-elect Rick Blangiardi must take a hard look at the issue of rental payment for use of city-owned real estate. Last year, the Council ventured into the debate by approving development of a car-share model, with companies reserving public stalls at annual rates, starting at $1,350.

In regard to the bikeshare program’s reach — now stretching from Iwilei to Waikiki and Manoa and Kaimuki — in addition to city evaluation of Biki Stop locations for compliance with traffic requirements, future expansion should include a more-pronounced opportunity for community input.

Biki aligns well with the city’s 12-year-old Complete Streets ordinance, through which it joined a nationwide movement that stresses designing streets for users of all ages and abilities, whether traveling by foot, bus, car, bicycle or any other mode. In tandem with the city’s expanding grid of bike lanes, the bikeshare program also aims to help remove greenhouse gas emissions.

The city’s move to incentivize bikesharing is understandable — as was the state’s move to enact a law in 2012 that offered electric vehicle owners special license plates, which gave them numerous perks, including free parking and use of the high-occupancy vehicle lanes. This year, the law expired, with EVs now a common sight on our roads.

The bikeshare program, too, needs to be weaned from overly generous public subsidy and scant oversight, so that taxpayer funds can be freed for other promising start-up investments as Honolulu’s Complete Streets philosophy evolves.