Bike share systems to offer free election day rides across U.S.

Source: Maryland Government via Flickr.

Civic engagement opportunities are an essential foundation of any society, but it’s not always easy to participate. Fortunately, for next week’s November 6th Election Day, bike share systems are stepping up to help residents reach their polling stations.

Here’s a list of some systems offering free rides to vote, mainly through promo codes:

• Philadelphia’s Indego is offering free bike share day passes on both Election Day and the day before, November 5th.
• Bike share operator Motivate is offering 30 minutes of complimentary ride time to users in nine regions: New York City, the Bay Area, Boston-metro, Chicago, Columbus, Jersey City, Portland, Minneapolis, and Washington D.C.-metro.
• Los Angeles’ Metro Bike is also offering a free 30 minutes of riding.
• Dockless mobility company Lime is providing the same opportunity for users of its full fleet of traditional bikes, e-bikes, and e-scooters.
• The Gotcha Group will offer free rides for all of its bike share systems, including Charleston.
• Cleveland’s UH Bikes will offer $7 worth of free ride time on Election Day.
• Zagster’s Pace bike share will give away two free 30-minute rides to users across eight cities and universities: Albuquerque, Annapolis, Bloomington, Fort Collins, Huntsville, Knoxville, Norfolk and Purdue University.
• BikeLNK of Lincoln will offer free Quick Tripper 30-minute rides.
• Bike New Haven is providing free 45-minute trips all day.

Some international systems are taking the same tactic, such as Canada’s Bike Share Toronto, which offered free rides to its October 22nd election.

Many local transit agencies and transit companies are also offering complimentary trips, as well as other shared mobility services.

Source: Matt Long via Flickr.

If you hear of other bike share operators helping residents get to the polls, please let us know (email: stefani@betterbikeshare.org) and we’ll add them to the list!

The Better Bike Share Partnership is funded by The JPB Foundation as a collaborative between the City of Philadelphia, the Bicycle Coalition of Greater Philadelphia, the National Association of City Transportation Officials (NACTO) and the PeopleForBikes Foundation to build equitable and replicable bike share systems. Follow us on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram or sign up for our weekly newsletter. Story tip? Write stefani@betterbikeshare.org.