You don’t have to drive to enjoy Bainbridge. Take BI Ride!
Thanks to $100,000 in funding from the City of Bainbridge Island, Kitsap Transit is launching a BI Ride awareness campaign. Never heard of this amazing service? Read on.
With BI Ride, residents, workers, and visitors can get almost anywhere on Bainbridge Island when our Routed buses aren’t operating. The curb-to-curb BI Ride service runs 8:45 AM to 3:30 PM on weekdays and 9 AM to 6 PM on Saturdays. We’re also working to recruit more bus drivers so we can implement Sunday service.
In June we added a hop-on/hop-off option for certain times between the Bainbridge Island Ferry Terminal and downtown Winslow. We’re experimenting with these “timed stops” to see if they are feasible given the potential for delayed ferries.
Fifteen years ago, BI Ride was inspired by the Bainbridge Island Chamber of Commerce’s “Frog Hopper” shuttle and has been serving island residents in one form or another ever since. Back then, BI Ride only ran on weekdays and required registration and booking the day before. In 2014, with funding from the City of Bainbridge, we launched a marketing campaign for BI Ride to let the public know about expansion of operating hours to Saturdays, removal of the registration requirement, and same-day scheduling of trips.
Ridership reached a peak of 36,711 riders in 2019, then plunged during the COVID-19 pandemic. In 2021, we re-booted BI Ride with the Ride Pingo app, becoming the first transit agency in the United States to launch a paid pilot with The Routing Company, the app’s developer. Here are some cool things the app makes possible:
Instantly schedule, track and pay for the ride, all in the app.
Save favorite places to make it faster to book rides.
Trying to catch a ferry? When you book your trip, activate “Transit Connect” so you don’t miss your ferry connection. This option currently uses Washington State Ferries published schedule.
See all your options: Thanks to Pingo Journey, users can see both Routed bus and BI Ride bus options when planning a trip in the app.
BI Ride in context
In a 2021 survey we did of Bainbridge Islanders, 88% of respondents said they had access to a private vehicle. While 28% reported using public transit to get to the ferry terminal (where you pay for parking), only 8% reported using transit to get around the island. Moreover, 43% reported they didn’t know what BI Ride is.
Meanwhile, the City of Bainbridge Island has a Climate Action Plan that has three overarching goals – reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 90% by 2045 over 2014 levels; ensure that Bainbridge Island is climate savvy; and inspire community action.
More recently, we’ve heard frustration from the Bainbridge community about BI Ride service hours not being long enough. We’ve been working to get the message out that bus service doesn’t end at 3:30 PM.
Outside of BI Ride service hours, we offer Routed (fixed-route) bus service. You can board Routed buses at marked stops in the downtown core. Outside of the downtown core, you can flag down Routed buses along their route from any safe roadside location. In the afternoon, these Routed buses depart from the ferry terminal and fan out across the island; they then return to the terminal.
To see our Bainbridge Island system map and links to schedules, click here.
Coming attractions
Working with our Tacoma-based marketing consultant, JayRay, we are excited to get the BI Ride campaign rolling. Our campaign’s overarching message: Carefree, Car-Free: You don’t have to drive to enjoy Bainbridge.
The campaign’s goal: Increase the on-demand service’s ridership by 20 percent and Ride Pingo app downloads by 30 percent. We’ve updated the design of our BI Ride webpage and plan on creating a how-to video for using the Ride Pingo app. We welcome your ideas!
To support the campaign, we’ve partnered with Olalla-based North Woods Productions to produce three commercials. To recruit local talent for the spots, we worked with our community partners, including the City of Bainbridge Island, Bainbridge Island Chamber, the Bainbridge Island Senior Center, Bainbridge Performing Arts, and Bainbridge Island Metro Parks & Recreation District, to get the word out. Filming took place in June, involving shooting in 10 locations and the efforts of more than a dozen volunteer actors and actresses.
The commercials will air on YouTube, Hulu, Facebook, Instagram and Snapchat starting this month. Digital display ads also will run on the web.
As part of the campaign, JayRay is producing a beautiful illustration to capture the spirit of Bainbridge Island that we plan to proudly share through window clings and stickers. If your business is interested in promoting BI Ride, please reach out!
We will be on the speaking circuit to spread the word about BI Ride. The Bainbridge Island Senior Center has invited us to speak to their audience during one of their regular Zoom sessions in August. If your community group would like a presentation on BI Ride and our services, please get in touch!
We’re also trying something new in our community outreach efforts: BI Ride will be this year’s Platinum Sponsor of Parks & Recreation District’s Sounds of Summer concert series. We’re exploring with the district the potential for providing BI Ride pickup/dropoff locations for the island’s major parks at trailheads. BI Ride also is a sponsor of this summer’s Bainbridge Island Farmers’ Market.
Later this year, we plan to replace our three-sided kiosk in the Bainbridge Ferry Terminal with a more modern one. We’re working with our partners at Washington State Ferries on that project.
Summer is a great time to try transit. Youth (under age 19) can ride free. Medicare cardholders and qualified seniors, disabled and low-income riders can ride for $1 (reduced fare). Adults (age 19 and up) can ride for $2. Or ride all day long with a Day Pass ($5) available through the Transit GO Ticket app.
The next time you need to get around Bainbridge, catch BI Ride!