Oregon Public Broadcasting

Another stalwart of Portland's "green" reputation is, of course, the bicycle. 

Perhaps you'd like to cycle to work – but the commute is just too far.   

Instead of taking your own bike on the bus or light rail, what if you could pick up a shared bike at the transit stop and be on your way? 

As Barbara Leidl reports, Portland is in the process of deciding whether bike sharing should come to town.

Best Cycling City in the USA – that’s what it says on the Portland Map for bikers, distributed by the City of Portland. 17,000 bikers cross the Willamette River every day.

Not enough for Steve Hoyt-McBeth with the City Office of Transportation.

Steve Hoyt-McBeth: "We’re in the middle of a ten year master plan of making Portland a world class biking city where bicycling is the first choice people make when they need to make a trip of under three miles."

The model could be an annual membership program like the zipcar - or the Call-a-bike-system used in German cities like Berlin and Munich.

There people call a toll-free number written on the bike, get a code to open the lock and just pay for whatever time they need with their credit card.

At this stage – the Portland Office of Transportation is doing surveys to find out how people feel about bike sharing in general.

Cyclist Michael More is skeptical.

Michael More: "I think, if there is money tobe spent, I'd rather see it spent more on more bike parking, more shelteredbike parking, more secure bike parking."

But says Steve Hoyt-McBeth – considering bike sharing is not an either /or question, it’s about bringing more people into the fold.

Steve Hoyt-McBeth: "One of the things that we'relooking at with the bike masterplan, is trying to not fight over crumbs among the different types of strategies but try to broaden the number of strategies to get more people on bicycling."

Only 1.5 percent of the city transportation budget goes to biking – which might sound low considering the city’s calculation that 18 percent of the Portlanders use bikes as their primary or secondary mode of transportation.