{"id":297055,"date":"2026-09-30T18:50:10","date_gmt":"2026-09-30T18:50:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/297055\/"},"modified":"2026-09-30T18:50:10","modified_gmt":"2026-09-30T18:50:10","slug":"indego-e-bikes-dominate-philadelphia-bike-share-fleet","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/297055\/","title":{"rendered":"Indego e-bikes dominate Philadelphia bike-share fleet"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Like other Philadelphians who work in the city, Justin Thomas frequently starts his mornings on two wheels.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Whenever he can, he takes his bike to work, and on mornings when he\u2019s on daycare drop-off duty, he\u2019ll walk his kid to daycare and bike the rest of the way to work using an Indego bikeshare bike from a nearby rack. His employer covers a yearly Indego subscription that allows free rides on Indego\u2019s nonelectric bikes, so using one on his way from daycare to work is, as Thomas describes it, \u201ca no-brainer.\u201d<\/p>\n

But Thomas said recently he\u2019s been finding that the racks around him and the daycare are out of non-e-bikes, so he walks the rest of the way to work because he wants the exercise of using a traditional bike.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Traditional bikes are healthier, but a 2022 study<\/a> found that regular e-bike use can still improve aerobic fitness, with health benefits comparable to conventional cycling in the limited studies that directly compared the two. Indego\u2019s e-bikes aren\u2019t fully electric; they assist users who are already pedaling. The bike will not move if you do not pedal.<\/p>\n

Matt Sun, a Fishtown biker who says he cycles around 30 miles a week along the Schuylkill River Trail, says he\u2019s also noticed the disparity between electric and traditional bikes on Indego docks but isn\u2019t bothered by it.<\/p>\n

\u201cSeems like Indego bikes are just putting out the bikes that their customers want to ride, and I\u2019m OK with that,\u201d said Sun. \u201cTheir audience is definitely most people who don\u2019t own their own bikes, but want to occasionally do a trip here and there.\u201d<\/p>\n

Indego is Philadelphia\u2019s city-owned bike-share system, launched in 2015 \u2014 then with just 600 bikes at 60 stations. The city of Philadelphia owns the bikes and stations, while the Office of Transportation and Infrastructure Systems<\/a> manages the program and Bicycle Transit Systems<\/a> operates it. Indego is among the country\u2019s largest bike-share programs, ranking sixth among major U.S. systems by ridership in 2024. The system now has roughly 2,100 bikes and over 250 stations across Philly with plans to expand<\/a> to 350 stations by the end of 2026.<\/p>\n

Through the first half of 2026<\/a>, roughly 72% of all 689,235 Indego rides in Philly<\/a> were on e-bikes. A July 8 analysis of Indego\u2019s live interface by a user on the r\/PhillyCycling Subreddit found<\/a> 1,571 e-bikes and 469 classic bikes available at stations at that moment, meaning roughly 77% of the bikes on racks were electric.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Indego general manager Nate Bowman-Johnston said the Philadelphia fleet was a mix of 70% electric bikes and 30% regular bikes.<\/p>\n

\u201cRider demand initially drove the scale up of electric bikes in the system,\u201d said Bowman-Johnston. \u201cHowever, we\u2019ve increasingly heard from passholders that they value a mixed fleet. As a result, we\u2019ve made a concerted effort to maintain the existing classic bike fleet and have plans to grow it over the next several years.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

According to Bowman-Johnston, Indego plans to add roughly 200 regular bikes to their fleet by 2027 and another 500 classic bikes by 2028.<\/p>\n

Jacob Russell, an organizer with Philly Bike Action, a grassroots group advocating for safer, protected bicycle infrastructure in Philadelphia, said he\u2019s heard some frustration in the Philly cycling community regarding the perceived lack of traditional bikes.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere is a pretty big price disparity in using the two,\u201d said Russell. \u201cIf you\u2019re expecting to use the regular bike, then it\u2019s not available to you; you\u2019re forced to pay the fee or change your entire subscription plan. I think that\u2019s certainly pretty unfair.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

Long-term subscriptions are Indego\u2019s most popular options, accounting for roughly 88% of all rides in the first half of 2026.<\/p>\n

\u2022 Indego30 ($20 every 30 days): Includes unlimited 60-minute classic bike rides. E-bikes cost an extra $0.20 per minute.<\/p>\n

\u2022 Indego365 ($156 annually): Includes unlimited 60-minute classic bike rides. E-bikes cost an extra 20 cents per minute.<\/p>\n

\u2022 Indego365 Plus ($230 annually): Includes unlimited 60-minute classic bike rides plus two 30-minute e-bike rides per day.<\/p>\n

Indego30 prices have climbed<\/a> since it launched; the subscription rose from $15 a month to $17 in 2018 and then again to $20 in 2022.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"\"Indego bikes at a docking station in Philly. (File photo\/Billy Penn)<\/p>\n

Indego e-bikes cap out at 17 mph but can exceed that going downhill. 2026 has seen sweeping electric bike bans or restrictions in cities like New York City, Chicago and Denver where e-bikes have been banned from sidewalks. In January, New Jersey<\/a> enacted a law requiring electric bike riders to be at least 15 and hold either a driver\u2019s license or an electric bike license, while all e-bikes must be registered with the state and some faster models must also be insured.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cMy normal bike and an Indego bike go the same speed,\u201d said Russell. \u201cI don\u2019t think folks are particularly concerned about the speed of normal bicycles; the devices I think are actually causing a lot of harm are not actually bicycles. They are like electric motorcycles that happen to look like a bicycle.\u201d<\/p>\n

Russell said Philly Bike Action has no overall preference for electric vs. regular bikes.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe want to see a healthy, thriving bike system here in Philly,\u201d said Russell. \u201cE-bikes can be a part of that but we don\u2019t want the extra costs of e-bikes to be a barrier to people using that system.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Love Philly? So do we. Let\u2019s be friends. Sign up for the Billy Penn newsletter today. Like other…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":297056,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[90230,96511,8036,11768,1288,19553,80560,122742,69,71,70,21073,2155,3425],"class_list":["post-297055","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-philadelphia","tag-bicycling","tag-bikeshare","tag-biking","tag-cycling","tag-e-bikes","tag-electric-bikes","tag-ev-electric-vehicle","tag-indego","tag-philadelphia","tag-philadelphia-headlines","tag-philadelphia-news","tag-public-transit","tag-transportation","tag-whyy"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/297055","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=297055"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/297055\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/297056"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=297055"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=297055"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=297055"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}