As rides dip, Bikeshare Hawaii to cut back on Biki stations, services

HONOLULU, Hawaii (HawaiiNewsNow) - A drop in revenue brought on by the pandemic is leading Bikeshare Hawaii to scale back Biki operations.

Rides reportedly dropped from 1.4 million in 2019, to 830,000 in all of 2020. Because of this drop in ridership, the non-profit that manages the bikeshare program will start decommissioning six stations on Thursday.

The stations are located in Kalihi, Downtown Honolulu, Kakaako, Waikiki, Makiki and Kaimuki.

The organization will also cut services by 60%, which will limit call center hours and bike rebalancing.

“Now after seeing that the Japanese tourism, the Korean tourism and other Asian tourism isn’t going to come back, we were worried it’s going to take another year before we can have our full ridership back,” Todd Boulanger, Bikeshare Hawaii Executive Director, said.

Boulanger said ridership slowly ticked up with the influx of spring break travelers, but it wasn’t enough to catch up to pre-pandemic revenue gains.

“We’ve already been paying out of our pocket to keep service going for these 13 months and we’re tapped out,” he added.

The Biki program also hasn’t been cheap for the city.

A previous HNN report showed the program cost the city $460,000 a year in lost revenue, mostly from street parking stalls that have been converted to bike docks.

[Read a previous report: Honolulu’s bikeshare program is costing the city hundreds of thousands in lost revenue]

At one point, Biki was generating roughly $2.7 million in annual sales.