WSDOT: Promised e-bike rebate program still far from launching

At 45 densely-packed pages of information about the e-bike incentive program, this policy brief (PDF) is not very brief.

If you were waiting for Washington State's rebate program to kick in before buying an e-bike, the state still has a lot of work to do before it is available. When it finally does launch at some undetermined point in the future, the state expects all 8,500 of them to be gobbled up quickly and doled out via a randomization system with most of the funding going to households making less than 80% of the area median income.

Of course, none of this means anything if Washington voters approve I-2117 in November, a terrible decision that would defund a laundry list of good investments such as clean air, transit, roads, wildfire prevention, ferries and, yes, e-bike rebates.

The state legislature funded an e-bike rebate program in 2023 using funds from the Climate Commitment Act. But more than a year later, the program has yet to select a vendor to build out the custom software infrastructure needed to handle income verification and voucher distribution. WSDOT's Active Transportation Division noted in a recent blog post that they plan to select a vendor in November to start that work. Though they don't say it in the post, this timing would allow them to see if I-2117 passes before committing to building out the software. So whether I-2117 passes or not, the campaign itself seems to have already delayed work on this program, harming local bike shops as people wait to see if they can get a cheaper e-bike later.

If I-2117 fails and the program can move forward, WSDOT does not yet have a timeline for when they expect the program to get up and running, noting only that they are confident we'll have plenty to report in our next legislative update due July 2025," according to a WSDOT blog post. If you make more than 80% of area median income (find out here), then rebates would be limited to $300 at most and you would need to win a lottery of sorts to get chosen. $300 is not nothing, but it might not be worth it to you to wait. E-bike prices are much lower now than they were even a couple years ago, and they may very well increase $300 by the time this program gets going depending how the industry and consumer demand evolves. It's impossible to know, but e-bike prices have been volatile since the pandemic began.

Despite the program delays, the team has been working to develop their plan and hire staff, according to WSDOT. They have learned from the logistical struggles in other places and worked with a University of Washington research team to publish a lengthy policy document (PDF) on how best to structure the whole thing based on best practices and the specifics of how the legislature wrote the law.

The research team concluded that the state should launch the program in phases focused on a few communities before launching statewide and that interested Washington residents should apply in advance through an online system that then selects recipients at random. They could then use the rebate only through a bike shop with a physical store in Washington that also offers on-site repairs and that will fully assemble and size-adjust the bike for the buyer. They must also offer a warranty of at least a year. Mountain bikes should be excluded from the program, but all three recognized classes of e-bikes should be included. Adaptive e-bikes designed for accessibility should also be included, which is great news because they can be really expensive and typically are not covered by health insurance. There should be no more than rebate per household. Rebates should be applied at the register, so buyers would not need to float the rebate amount while waiting for a reimbursement check from the state. This is especially important for low-income buyers who can qualify for up to $1,200 in rebates, an amount of money that qualified buyers may not have available. However, it does add layers of complexity to the system.

One wrinkle in their plan is that the program must, by law, dedicate 40% of the investments to vulnerable populations within the boundaries of overburdened communities" as defined by the Washington Department of Ecology as well as some of the highly impacted communities" identified by the Department of Health. However, they may find that one disparity in such communities is often a lack of access to bike shops. So it will be interesting to see how the program mitigates this problem. I don't know if there's enough funding here to incentivize new shops within our state's bike shop deserts, but that would be a wonderful side-effect if it happened. A bicycle is an incredible source of very low-cost transportation, but only if the bike is working. In the Puget Sound region, Everett, North Seattle/Shoreline, South Seattle, South King County, Northeast Puyallup and South and East Tacoma are identified as overburdened by the Department of Ecology, while census tracts that at least partially contain tribal lands are also noted as highly impacted communities" under state statute. The legal definitions here are overlapping and a bit difficult for me to follow, and it's very possible that my descriptions in this paragraph are not inclusive of them all. Focused outreach and early rollouts of the program should begin in these areas of the state.