 Welcome to Connecting Hawai'i Business on Think Tech Hawai'i. My name is Kathleen Lee, owner of Kathleen Lee Consulting, and I am your host for this program. Think Tech Hawai'i is currently live streamed on ThinkTechHawaii.com as well as on Think Tech Hawai'i's Facebook and YouTube channel. For viewers out there who would like to ask us questions during the show, you may email them to us at questions at ThinkTechHawaii.com. I'm excited for today's show since this is our last Connecting Hawai'i Business for the year before we launch into the new year. And I have my friend, the executive director of Bike Share Hawai'i, to talk about updates on the Bike Share program, Todd Boulanger. Hey, Todd. Hey, Aloha. Thanks for having me and thanks for the hard work that Think Tech does in exploring relevant issues to Hawai'i. Of course. And thank you for everything that Beaky does. I understand that you have been on Think Tech shows a couple of times before, but let's go ahead and introduce you anyway. Tell the viewers about yourself. Yeah, I think this is my third time. But yes, so I'm Todd Boulanger. I am a transportation professional UH Manoa grad. I'm currently the executive director of Bike Share Hawai'i, which is the nonprofit that oversees the Bike Share system in Honolulu, which is called Beaky. We only exist to fulfill that contract for the city and keep the bikes rolling in Honolulu. And yeah, that's about it. Beaky brought me back to Honolulu after about 20 years working on the mainland in Europe and the Middle East. It's wonderful. And thank you for sharing the 2020 annual report with us as well. So let's go over that just to give viewers in our community out there an update. If we can pull up the first graphic, Todd, could you go over the ridership beta for the last year, especially during the year of COVID? Yes. Yeah. So which page is that you're referring to that for? So it's the one with the ICHR that talks about the ridership. Yeah. So prior to COVID, Bike Share Hawai'i was running. We had about 1.4 million rides for the year. And what that typically broke down to was about 100 to 120,000 rides per month. Most Bike Share systems in the U.S., that's their annual total, not monthly, other than the five major systems, Boston, New York, D.C., San Francisco, and Chicago. So Beaky is the sixth most utilized system in the U.S. as per NACTO rankings over several years. That is until COVID. So we haven't seen the data nationally since COVID. But COVID affected Beaky just like it affected most other scooter sharing and bike sharing and transit systems in the U.S. We went from a strong start to the year 2020, which was about 110 to 120,000 rides dropped way down to almost 30,000 rides within two weeks. And that was the lockdown that appeared in the state of Hawai'i in March. And for those who may not remember, tourist arrivals went from, I believe, 30,000 a day at the Honolulu International Airport to about 300 during that same month period. And so for the year, Beaky came out to about, that was 830,000 rides for 2020. 630,000 were members, typically Kama'ina and residents. And just 200,000 were visitors and other casual users. And so the system, though, used less, became more and more important for Kama'ina's, for their essential trips around town. When the system started in 2017, there was about between 50 to 60% of the rides for tourists in the first three months. During COVID, 80% of the rides were Kama'ina's and residents. Oh, wow. What would you account that increase to? Well, primarily... I don't know people not coming in, I guess. That's a huge one. Yeah, primarily people found that, you know, they're, in a sense, I like to describe Beaky as like having four membership bases, like four legs with stool. You know, the dominant leg is tourism when it's active. That's typically about 25 to 30% of our users. And then the other three legs are typically locals. You know, the downtown office folks. Then you have the university districts. You know, we have Beakies at the HPU, UH Manoa, and the KCC campus. And then the other major leg are people that, you know, typically don't own a car or are what we call in the business car light. And they typically, you know, have moved to Kaka'ako or Kapahulu District or Waikiki and they don't, they don't or can't really own a car. There's no parking, it's too expensive. You know, maybe the car, their spouse uses the only car their family has. And so Beaky is their backup car or their main car, depending on their situation. And so during COVID, deep COVID, we had primarily those folks who had really no other option. They didn't want to ride the bus. You know, we pulled our members in June of 2020. And over 80% of them said they were still riding Beaky because they felt it was the safest form of shared transportation available to them. You know, they want to be in a small enclosed Uber, you know, taxi or bus at that time. I can see that because I, looking at the statistics, I see that some of the most frequently used Beaky stops are around my neighborhood, which is the Alamona Kaka'ako area. Yeah. You were talking about usage. What were some challenges that you and the organization ran into, aside from, you know, like ridership dropping in general, but increasing for locals? What were some challenges that you folks faced during COVID? Well, especially, I mean, you're the, let's see, you're the board member for the Kaka'ako neighborhood board. So you really know the neighborhood well. So I'll focus on what you might have seen. A lot of places were closed. You know, a lot of the destinations that, a lot of the offices, restaurants, and even parks were closed. And so people didn't have places that they could legally go to. And so for the initial three to, I'd say two to three months, we saw longer rides because people were riding directly to their destination. They weren't using the trip chain with a bus trip. They were riding for recreation because the parks were closed, or they were having to ride farther to get to a destination because maybe their local, your local bank branch was closed. You know, I'm a first Hawaiian bank member in our ward branch. It's been closed for almost two years now. So now I have to go downtown. And so these COVID has kind of had these ripple effects through a lot of our neighborhood services. And so that does affect how long it takes people to go get to places if you can't do it digitally, say. The other, I think the other challenges were it wasn't traffic. I mean, in a sense, that was a positive challenge. There was a lot less cars being driven on the streets during the first part of the COVID. And so there was a lot more street space. I mean, I saw a lot of people riding their B-keys and their personal bikes on Alamwana slash Nimitz Highway. I mean, there wasn't enough traffic to fill three lanes, let alone just one. So that was a positive challenge. And that led to great events like the open streets that the city and HPL had in Waikiki. Later in late COVID, we had some vandalism show up. But that's really been more of a 2021 issue than a 2020 issue. And I think the major 2020 issues were just access to services and places to go. Once people felt they could go out, a lot of people, I think, were under the mental lockdown also. They hunkered down, they stayed inside. This is before vaccines, before they felt they had permission to explore the city. Our office was open seven days a week throughout COVID and even today. So once we were deemed an essential service, we didn't look back for 2020. Well, let's talk about that real quick. So when it comes to vandalism, and I think you mentioned before the show that theft was one of the issues as well. When that happens to the Bikki bikes, how does it affect, one, the organization? And what can people do if, let's say they run out of Bikki and then it gets vandalized, tampered with or stolen during the time of their rental? What can they do to kind of alleviate that? Or what's the first thing they should do, I guess? Yeah, I mean, it's just, I mean, Bikki is like a library book. I mean, it's a shared public resource that we ask that people take care of when it's in their use. And so I would say the typical problem arises when a member, you know, borrows the Bikki bike from a kiosk and they don't return it successfully to the dock. You know, they don't look for the green light, they just listen, which is not what they should do. Or worse, they may leave it outside of the store. I mean, it's always shocking how many people report that their Bikki's been stolen while they were in a 7-11 or an ABC store. And, you know, you wouldn't leave your child in a stroller outside the store, nor should you leave your Bikki like that. You know, don't abandon your Bikki. And so what that happens, then the bike becomes lost, in a sense. You know, we can track them to some extent, but once they're outside of our control, then they become damaged. They can, people vandalize them, they may paint them thinking they're camouflaged. But, you know, it's like painting an elephant pink. You know, people know it's an elephant. You know, there's no use to painting a Bikki. There's no use to taking the fenders off in the basket. I mean, it's still a Bikki. So, you know, please don't vandalize the Bikki because, you know, maybe your auntie, your uncle, or your nephew need that Bikki to get to work. You know, it's Bikki, you know, it's like a city bus, you know, if you damage a city bus, it's not there for your use. And, you know, we've been able to keep come on affairs at, you know, $15 per month from limited 30 minute rides since day one, you know, we're now in our fifth year. And that is the most affordable mobility option, shared mobility option in the city, in the city center. So, vandals and costs don't help that. Gotcha. We are about to go on break soon. But Todd, when we come back, I would love for you to go over some of the milestones that Bike Share Hawaii and the Bikki Bike Share program hit between 2020 and 2021, as well as some of the financial summary that I think it would be great for viewers to know. I am under the impression that some folks out there may think that a lot of Bikki's funding comes from government grants. So I love that you have a chart that we can show later on. So when we return, Todd will go over those details. We'll be right back. Host of Hawaii, the state of clean energy on Think Tech Hawaii. Hawaii, the state of clean energy is about following the many clean energy initiatives in Hawaii. Hawaii, the state of clean energy appears weekly on Think Tech Hawaii at 4pm on Wednesdays. Thank you so much for watching our show. We'll see you then. Aloha. Welcome back to Connecting Hawaii Business. On today's show, we have Todd Boulanger, Executive Director of Bike Share Hawaii. When we left off, he was discussing some of the challenges that Bike Share Hawaii faced in 2020 and parts of 2021. Now, Todd, could you talk about some milestones that you're proud of as far as Bikki and Bike Share Hawaii hitting this year and 2020? So as a small nonprofit that oversees the Bikki system, I would say I was most proud that we rose to the challenge that the mayor called when he gave us and characterized or defined us as an essential service. And so instead of closing down like many systems did or pulling in half the stations for 2020, we stayed fully open. Additionally, none of our staff members got COVID. Now, we had a very strict sanitation and cleaning protocol throughout the office and our equipment. And I know if COVID had tragically struck many people, especially bus operators in Honolulu, and thankfully knock on wood, we're still healthy. And as a small system, if any one of our staff had COVID and shut down the office, our customers would have definitely been drastically impacted by the quality of the service. I mean, I think the challenges for COVID were just keeping going. I mean, as with many small businesses, the PPP through the U.S. Small Business Administration was critical for our survival. We did not, Bikeshare is not like transit in the eyes of the federal government. And so we did not get hundreds of thousands of dollars or millions of dollars like the FTA gave to OTS and other large urban systems. So we've been having to just look to philanthropic grants to our sponsors. All Nipon Airways was generous enough to remain a sponsor during 2020, even though if they stopped flying here, we were the only local Honolulu entity they sponsored in 2020. So that was very gracious of them. And then our support from the public health field, Hawaii Pacific Health, HMSA, their sponsorship allowed us to continue operating to this day. And I think the critical issue is, and we brought this up, Kathleen, is most people don't realize that the Bikeshare Hawaii, the non-profit, does not receive any fees from the fare box revenue. Let's pull up the financial summary graphics so people can get a better idea of what you are talking about. Because I was actually surprised at the percentages of that pie chart, but if you can go over that to explain to viewers where Bikeshare Hawaii's funding comes from. Yeah, so stepping back, so Bikeshare Hawaii is kind of the overseer of the system. We serve the interests of the city providing Bikeshare, providing all of the reporting requirements, the planning, community outreach. Marketing. Additionally, we oversee the operations of the for-profit operator. So all of the income from the system, you know, whenever you rent a bike or pay a membership, that money goes to pay off the initial $5 million loan that the operator took out to start the system. You know, those first hundred stations and a thousand bikes were not funded by this, were not funded by the federal government like buses are or by the city. You know, that money came out of their pocket. So the non-profit, we have to seek government grants, or we have to seek business sponsorships. And that's why you see a few select companies on the Bikes. Again, all Nipon Airways, HCI, the local electric company foundation, Hawaii Pacific Health and others. Those companies share the same vision of active transportation and safe streets that Bikeshare does. And so their donations to us allow us to provide our, the community aspect, the planning and the permitting and the insurance that, you know, modern businesses need to operate. So if you look at the pie chart, 85% of our 2020 income came from these sponsorships. And those are corporate donations. We had one major grant from the Department of Health to study how Bike could better serve expansionaries like Kalihi and other low to modest income areas. And so we were ready to implement that right as COVID hit. And so that's another reason why we stayed open and not shut down so that we could serve folks that didn't, you know, can't afford to rent an Uber every time they go out or buy a car. Yeah, I can appreciate that. I remember when Bike first came out in 2017, and it was a period of my life when I didn't have a car for a whole year. And it was, to me, it was such, I was so grateful for its existence since I was able to go around my neighborhood. So I'm really, really happy of the existence of the program in Honolulu. So let's pull up the community impacts graphic and if you could go over that Todd to tell our community out there, what differences Bike has made. So the, our annual reports are found on our website gopike.org. The community impacts. And so I think the key impact of bike share is that whenever you ride a Bike, you don't need to plant trees, because you're, you're not having to mitigate emissions from a motorized vehicle. You know, your, your Bike trip is powered by whatever you ate that day bananas oatmeal. You know, whatever. And so we're not having to undo the emissions from a vehicle so some of the environmental impacts that Bike helped with during 2020. There are 13 million minutes of bike travel. And so that helps kind of humanize the streets in our core service area. There's research called safety and numbers and that shows that drivers drive safer when they have to share the road with more and more pedestrians and cyclists you know they'll react to whatever is on the road if there are no cyclists, then they drive like it's a highway. And those 30 minutes led to equivalencies of avoiding 2 million pounds of carbon dioxide. So that's typically what you see in tailpipes and factories. And those are global greenhouse gases that, you know, are affecting our island survival and the planet survival. It avoided over 130,000 gallons of fuel gasoline typically being imported into this island and a lot of our fuel comes from Korea and other remote places that, you know, we have to spend a lot of our hard earned money to send to those far off places, be it, you know, the city and such. Additionally, those 13, those Bike trips for 2020 were equivalent of removing 280 cars in the city center. So what I like to tell our friends and out of the North Shore and why and I and other places, you know, even though you don't have don't yet have a Bike station near your home. That doesn't mean that we're not making it easier for you when you're in town because we don't expect you to be key from why and I into the city but you know for those folks that have to drive. We open up street space and parking space for those kakaako people like Kathleen who made maybe used to drive to the 711 to get our quarter milk and take up that lane space and that parking space. But now, you know, she rides a Bike. And so someone from North Shore can come in and find, you know, come in for their essential business trips or their medical trips or their whatever shopping trips and find lives a little easier for them. And so that's really kind of how we help a Wahoo, you know, as a whole. In addition to the the six large neighborhoods that we currently serve. So those on on watching this, our service area is about eight miles wide from the Home Depot out in evil a, all the way. Cocoa head to the base of diamond and crater, and then up into Manoa Valley up into. Let's see. And Waukeke, of course. That's awesome. I think I mentioned this to you before, but I remember some friends and I went through a, like a bike trip to figure out the distance of where all the keys tops were, and they're really conveniently located. So that last graphic that shows the wonderful photos and contact info for Vicky. Todd, this is more of a question for you. So what lessons have you learned of being at the helm of bike share Hawaii, the last couple of years. I would say, you know, so I've been in transportation mobility for 20 to 25 years public private. And now nonprofit or previously also nonprofit I think my biggest lesson learned is public private partnerships take a lot of care and feeding. You know, they're, they're often easy to enter into but keeping them going keeping multiple parties happy and engage, I think is the biggest challenge. And, you know, be key. The be key P three, I believe is probably one of the, the most recent experiences the city has with P threes. And, you know, it may be even the state. There aren't a lot out there. And, you know, other than utilities. So I think, you know, this has been a lesson learned for all parties involved. So we have a be key is website. Because we have a few minutes left or actually a couple of minutes left. Todd, is there anything else that you would like to add. Well, other than just thanking our customers for sticking with us through, you know, the thick and thin of 2020 and 2021 I would say, you know, we are a nonprofit. It's like a public radio, or public TV, we live by donations and so any of our customers, please feel free to send us a donation there's a link on our website. But additionally, we would love to showcase new businesses on our, on our be key bikes, you know, give them exposure, while also helping us fund our community outreach activities because now that things are opening up we're starting with more public services. You know, recently this last week with HP as we had a free helmet giveaway and fitting at salt. You know, six pillars was very helpful, and commandment schools also helped host the event on their facility at salt. So, again, business donations are really what keeps us going. And we're looking forward to further working with the city and county of Honolulu on what is next for be key. You know, we're, we're wrapping up our fifth year of operations I mean it's, it's, it's difficult to imagine we've already been up and running for, for five years and over 4 million trips, which is like 26 trips the moon. In our discussions with the community and the city this this next year in 2022 will be asked, we'll be talking about expansion areas will be re exploring the electrification of our fleet, you know, adding electric beacons and electric stations, potentially even tying those those electric beaky stations to be charging stations that's you know pilot we've been talking to he go for quite a while. Additionally, the holo card you know the holo card has been as a long time transit user has been liberated, you know I don't have to think about having coins in my purse. Don't have to think about, you know, do I need to buy a day pass or just a single pass you know it does all that math that hard math for me. It would be great if you could have one, one linked mobility pass now tying beaky with holo and so you know we're working with our partners on exploring those for the next, next two, two to three years of service. Well, thank you for coming on the show today Todd and giving everyone an update on and on that note we also would like to thank Jay Fidel and the staff at think tech Hawaii. We had Michael and Haley who helped us out today. Todd, can you hold that up again real quick just so we can. So yeah, if you see a beaky, a lost little blurry. Yeah, please call our customer service line 888-340-2454 that's 888-340-2454. Awesome. Thank you so much, Todd. And on that note, we will see you next time. Aloha.