Tigard has been awarded a $105,800 grant from Portland General Electric’s Drive Change Fund for the purchase and deployment of e-bikes for use at two multi-family affordable housing facilities.
The grant benefits Tigard’s Power to the Pedal E-Bike Library pilot, which will soon begin a suburban e-bike borrowing program for residents at those buildings.
“We are so appreciative of PGE and our partners, Community Partners for Affordable Housing, for recognizing how this program will reduce local greenhouse gas emissions and make Tigard a more equitable city,” said Kenny Asher, Tigard’s community development director, in a statement. “We’re just getting started in this space and we’re looking to PGE to team on more innovative programs like this one.”
Tigard recently finalized a climate action plan that identified transportation as the single largest contributing sector that adds to greenhouse gas emissions. That same report called for increasing transit and active transportation trips to a total of 20% over the next 12 years.
E-bikes are motorized bicycles that contain an electric motor to make them move.
The e-bike program is expected to introduce “residents to this emerging technology and provides them with free trips for short-term use, eliminating the need for some automobile trips,” said a city news release.
Elyssia Lawrence, senior manager, product manager and head of PGE’s Transportation Electrification Team, said money for the e-bikes comes from the Department of Environmental Quality’s Oregon Clean Fuels Program.
“Transportation electrification plays an essential role in accelerating the clean energy transition. It is going to take all of us working together to achieve a cleaner and more equitable future for all Oregonians,” Lawrence said.
