Portland officials are negotiating with Lyft, the global ride-hailing and mobility company, to operate the city’s Biketown rental fleet.

But while Portland transportation staffers last year said they wanted to see a new fleet featuring hundreds of electric assist bikes hit city streets this spring or summer, they’re now walking back that timeline.

“We think completing a contract in 2020 is reasonable,” Dylan Rivera, transportation bureau spokesman, said in an email this week, “but we have no specific timeframe in mind.”

Portland’s contact with Biketown’s current operator, Motivate, ends in April.

So why isn’t Portland rushing to find a new on-demand bike rental company?

Lyft owns Motivate, so city officials say they don’t expect riders to notice any service disruption.

“Right now, we’re negotiating with our existing operator, so it stands to reason that extending would be relatively easy to do,” Rivera said.

Rivera said Portland believes it’s important to “get the contract right,” and he said that transportation officials are seeking a five-year agreement with a potential for a five-year extension.

“Taking a number of months to get it right seems like time well spent to get the best long-term deal for Portlanders,” he said.

The city in October opened the floodgates to companies interested in running the Biketown system, which will still be sponsored by Nike through at least 2021. Portland required at least half of the new fleet to be e-bikes, and it called for an expansion into all neighborhoods, including hilly Southwest Portland and neighborhoods east of 82nd Avenue.

Last month, the city procurement division quietly disclosed it chose Lyft, the San Francisco-based company, over the lone other bidder. Social Bicycles, better known as the dockless bike and scooter company Jump, submitted the other bid. Uber, Lyft’s chief competitor, owns Social Bicycles.

If negotiations fall apart, the city can then begin discussions with Social Bicycles.

Lyft declined to provide photos of the company’s e-bikes, citing the ongoing contract discussions.

“We thank PBOT, Nike, and the City of Portland for their many years of partnership and are happy to be in discussions with the City of Portland about possibilities for the future of Biketown,” a spokesman said in an email.

Rivera said city staffers have test-ridden multiple e-bikes from potential vendors, but he declined to comment.

-- Andrew Theen; atheen@oregonian.com; 503-294-4026; @andrewtheen

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