Pedal power: City halfway through giving away 5,000 bikes

Tanisha Maclin finally won the lottery.

No, not the Mega Millions. Instead, she won a free bicycle through a city program called Bike Chicago, which began two years ago to deliver 5,000 bikes to people without them.

"OK, this is cool," Maclin said, smiling as an employee handed her a single-speed bike on Saturday. It is the first bicycle she's had since childhood.

Maclin, 42, said she wanted a bike to exercise and do errands. She was most excited to ride around Jackson Park, near her Woodlawn home.

Maclin is among 2,400 Chicagoans who've received a free bike through the program begun in 2022 by then-Mayor Lori Lightfoot. The program wants to reach its 5,000-bike goal by the end of 2026.

The city uses a metric, called the Mobility and Economic Hardship Index, to make sure the bikes go to people who need them most, said David Powe, deputy commissioner of the Chicago Department of Transportation.

The city uses a lottery to pick recipients from the people who apply and qualify. More than 19,000 people applied in the first months, according to CDOT, which runs the program.

Many recipients live in neighborhoods where moving around without a car is more challenging.

"They may be intimidated to bike again," Powe said at the distribution event, but it helps that recipients don't get just a bike. They also get a helmet, a lock, and lessons on road safety and helmet fitting.

"They leave invigorated," said Powe, who oversees the program.

Bike Chicago aims to increase biking among Chicagoans and decrease dependence on cars. Research shows that's already happening.

Bike riding more than doubled in Chicago over the past five years, the largest increase in any American city, according to a CDOT-commissioned survey earlier this year. The study showed cycling was growing even faster on parts of the South and Southwest sides, and among non-white cyclists and among households with no cars.

Two years into the bike program, about 40% of recipients say they are riding their bikes at least three to five times per week, according to a May report by the nonprofit Shared-Use Mobility Center. Some recipients said they were skipping shorter car rides and taking a bike instead.

Nearly 60% of people who took the survey said they now drive less overall than before they received their bicycle, according to the report.

Bike Chicago is the largest bike distribution program ever undertaken in the United States, according to the report. The next-largest bike program was undertaken by New York City, which distributed 200 bikes to asylum-seekers. A similar program last year in West Hollywood, California, provided 50 bikes.

Other American cities have programs that encourage bike ownership, but they mostly focus on handing out vouchers good toward the purchase of an e-bike, which can cost $1,500 to $5,000. At least nine states have e-bike subsidy programs. Illinois does not.

Chicago's bike program distributes single-speed, traditional pedal-power bikes.

In 2022 and 2023, the Bike Chicago program cost the city $1.23 million, according to the report. That comes to about $652 per distributed bicycle, including a helmet, lock and the cost of labor and distribution.

The program is expected to cost another $2.03 million through the end of 2026, according to the report. The money comes from Chicago Recovery Bond program, which consists of federal COVID-19 relief funds. It's unclear where funding would come from when the cash runs out at the end of 2026.

Chicago's program is handing out more bikes as it sped up the distribution process at its Center For Green Technology, 445 N. Sacramento Blvd., in Humboldt Park.

The city holds distribution events every other week in the non-winter months.

Recipients can now complete safety training online before arriving to pick up a bike, said Angel Montalvo, program manager of the city's Safe Ambassadors program. The in-person pickup process takes about a half hour.

The program started with handing out about 60 bikes per event, Montalvo said.. On a recent Saturday, they had about 160 people pick up a bike.

"The No. 1 thing was to get bikes in as many people's hands as possible," Montalvo said.

Isela Tapia, of Brighton Park, heard about the program from a friend who got a bike through it.

She had wanted a bike for years, "but they are expensive. It's definitely a big factor," she said.

Mallorie Kennedy, 38, applied for a bike two years ago and was "very shocked" to be accepted recently.

She appreciated the provided accessories. "It's a whole kit," she said.

Now, equipped with a bike, the Chicago Lawn resident wants to bring her young children to bike the lakefront and visit Navy Pier.