Bike-Friendly Policies Boost Portland's Livability Profile, Says Digital Marketing Consultant

Augusto Beato, CEO of Portland SEO, lauded the city officials for tapping the services of a tech company in improving Portland's bike facilities.

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"It is evident that officials are making the city more bike-friendly that helps boost its livability profile," said Beato.

The tech company, Ride Report, will get data from bicycle riders such as road safety through an app so Portland can make more informed policy decisions as it plans bike projects. Portland inked a five-year agreement capped at $254,000 with Ride Report, with the company being paid $30,000 in the first year. "I hope more people choose to use this locally made app to track their bike rides, so we can benefit from predictive analytics in shaping future routes," said Leah Treat, Portland's transportation director.

The free smartphone application automatically tracks bike trips and gives users the ability to rate their ride's safety. Ride Report produces a grid map from the user responses showing what areas of town are deemed safe or stressful to ride.

Dylan Rivera, the Portland transportation spokesman, said the city has already had some access to Ride Report's data for the past year. The data was used to evaluate the success of the Better Naito bike project, a seasonal bike and pedestrian project that converts one lane of Southwest Naito Parkway for several uses. "What's different now is with this partnership we'll have access to all their data," Rivera said.

Portland performs its bicycle surveys at 280 locations across the city each year. However, those surveys are not as reliable as Ride Report's data sets, which give the city a good glimpse of where bicycle infrastructure could be beneficial.