Alta Bike Share is Moving to New York City

By AARON MESH
FIRST WE TAKE MANHATTAN: Mia Birk says she's used to people having strong feelings about bicycles. "If you're telling me to bike," she says, "you're telling me that something in my life is wrong and needs to change."

Portland company Alta Bike Share went to New York City last summer. It isn't coming back.

New York-based investment firm REQX Ventures confirmed today what's been widely expected for months: It's buying Alta Bike Share in order to bail out the Manhattan bicycle rental system Citi Bikes.

The equity firm says it will move the company from Portland to New York City, and appoint a new CEO.

The announcement says the sale will have no impact on Alta's sister company, Alta Planning + Design, which designs and builds bike routes and lanes in cities across America. Both companies have been run by Mia Birk, one of Portland's best-known bicycling advocates.

In 2013, WW profiled Birk and her gamble taking Alta to the Big Apple.

The sale will double the size of Citi Bikes—expanding it into Williamsburg, Portland's doppelgänger—and hike the price of an annual membership from $95 to $149. A report obtained by Capital New York in July said Citi Bike's results in its first 18 months were $5.6 million worse than budgeted.

The Oregonian reported today that local transportation officials say the sale will have no effect on Portland's long-delayed bike-share program. Those officials have distanced themselves from a plan to loan Alta money to launch a bike-share system here this year.

WWeek 2015

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