Member Spotlight – Bicycle Transit Systems

Bicycle Transit Systems Team Photo

Bicycle Transit Systems helps communities become greener, healthier, and more connected by operating highly utilized, financially sustainable bikeshare systems. President and CEO Alison Cohen has launched bikeshare systems in almost every major American city, including Los Angeles’ Metro Bike Share, Philadelphia’s Indego, and Las Vegas’ RTC Bike Share.

In 2020, Bike Transit embarked on a journey to create a Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Justice (DEIJ) plan, with a third party D&I expert, for both internal and external business practices. Bike Transit created a Chief Equity & Strategy Officer (CESO) position to support implementation and build staff capacity to incorporate DEIJ into how they serve clients and communities. Their CESO defines the overarching vision, identity, and strategy to become a diverse, equitable, and inclusive organization in their company leadership and across their bikeshare systems. In October 2020, Carniesha Kwashie was hired and focused her initial efforts on:

  • Level setting by defining DEIJ and getting a company-wide endorsement from staff
  • Introducing short term and long term DEIJ based frameworks as a part of continuous improvement efforts
  • Working with HR to develop DEIJ hiring processes and tools
  • Supporting the growth and evolution of the employee-led DEIJ Committees to increase employee engagement
  • Leading the strategy and design of both processes and products for system equity expansion plans to promote transparency, increased feedback loops, and a DEIJ perspective in what we do

The CESO position is unique in the micromobility industry. They intend to demonstrate that roles like this are necessary for the industry to improve how systems can positively impact the workplace environment and the communities we serve.

In spring 2021, Bike Transit partnered with the RTC of Southern Nevada, Transit, and BCycle to make Las Vegas the first US city to integrate its bikeshare and transit system into a single account and app experience. Las Vegas residents and visitors can now make bikeshare a key part of their multi-modal journeys throughout the city by downloading the Transit app, purchasing their passes, checking out bikes, and viewing nearby bus routes and countdowns. They’re excited to engage in partnerships like this to make it easier for people to incorporate bikeshare and public transportation into their daily routines.

For Bike Transit, being a NABSA member is valuable because they can stay updated on industry news like system operations, sizes, equipment types, user apps, or data requirements across North America and beyond. They particularly love the annual conference and the regular webinars on very specific matters with expert panelists from public or private organizations and advocacy groups as another way to hear about what is going on in the micromobility world outside of the systems they operate day-to-day. In a constantly changing industry, having a platform to exchange with others, unite efforts for policy changes at the local or federal level, share insights, and sometimes even equipment is valuable. It makes the industry stronger and helps accelerate growth and increase equitable access to micromobility. They appreciate that NABSA has created a collaborative and friendly space for every member to come together to grow the industry and contribute to fighting climate change by changing the transportation landscape at local levels.

Bike Transit is committed to being an ally and advocate for the communities they serve and recently posted their support for Stop AAPI- Hate efforts.