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City and CapMetro outline plan to expand and electrify Austin bike share
Summary
City of Austin and CapMetro described a three-year interlocal agreement, recent fare changes, ridership patterns concentrated at UT/West Campus, and plans to add about 10 stations this fall while electrifying 30–50% of docks to reduce operational costs.
City of Austin staff and CapMetro on Tuesday described a three-year interlocal agreement and a phased expansion of the city’s bike-share system, including new electrified stations, a fare restructure that went into effect Aug. 1, and plans to add roughly 10 stations this fall.
The city entered a three-year interlocal agreement with Capital Metropolitan Transportation Authority (CapMetro) earlier this year. Under the agreement, CapMetro will manage vendor contracts, operations, maintenance and branding for the system and ensure grant-funded activities meet third-party requirements; the city retains ownership of stations and bikes and will design and permit new infrastructure except where construction occurs in CapMetro right-of-way. City and CapMetro staff said both partners will produce monthly and annual reports on system performance.
City and CapMetro officials said the system now operates a 100% electric bicycle fleet after replacing the legacy B-cycle system last year. CapMetro and Transportation and Public Works (TPW) staff said the system currently had 73 stations and would reach 75 the day after the presentation; they plan to install about 10 additional stations in fall 2025 and scale up thereafter toward a larger network footprint.
"We are focused on expanding 10 stations here in 2025, this fall," said Mike Kimbreau, program manager for shared mobility services with Transportation and Public Works. "We're aiming for roughly 30 to 50% of the system being able to charge bikes at docks so we reduce battery swaps and lower operational costs." JD Simpson, CapMetro’s bike program manager, added that CapMetro staff handle battery swaps and vendor operations under the interlocal agreement.
Ridership remains heavily concentrated in West Campus and the University of Texas area; staff said trips per bike per day range between about three and six. Simpson said the library station at the UT campus had registered more than 30,000 trips so far this year. Staff also said the system recorded its single highest day during South by Southwest with more than 2,000 trips.
To address confusing legacy pricing, staff moved on Aug. 1 to a per-minute usage charge (25 cents per minute for overages) and adjusted the structure for day, 31-day and annual passes and student discounts. "We have more closely aligned our annual pass and student discount with industry best practices," Simpson said. The city said the student discount and a UT supplement for the first year will lessen the immediate price impact on students while the partners monitor ridership.
TPW and CapMetro staff said operations costs are dominated by battery swaps for electric bikes. Electrified docks, which recharge bikes while docked, are intended to reduce labor-intensive battery swaps and let operations staff focus on maintenance. Staff described permitting, conduit installation and metering as obstacles to quick electrification and said retrofitting high-ridership stations is a priority.
Staff also said they are pursuing advertising revenue to offset operating costs; CapMetro has begun station advertising with H-E-B and staff expect to report more on advertising revenue next year. City staff said fare revenue historically covered a minority of operating costs (staff estimated student fares previously covered about 25% of operating costs) and that the city and CapMetro will share operating costs under the interlocal agreement.
The presentation included an outline of grant funding that supports the expansion. Staff said a Transportation Alternatives set-aside grant from the Texas Department of Transportation is funding parts of the planned expansion and that the city is using its Climate Pollution Reduction Grant (CPRG) work to measure how bike share feeds transit ridership over the next 4–5 years.
Commissioners asked about competition with shared scooters and how bike share complements transit. "We're looking at it more as a transit solution," Simpson said, noting station-based bikes can better serve groups and large transit transfers than sidewalk scooters. Commissioners also urged staff to monitor West Campus closely after the fare change because students are a large share of riders; staff said UT is supplementing the first year and they will watch ridership and revisit pricing.
Staff said next steps include installing the 10 2025 expansion stations, retrofitting existing high-ridership stations for electrification, launching system advertising, improving the public ridership dashboard and revisiting the interlocal agreement with CapMetro in 2028.
