State officials handed out 1,000 more vouchers last week under a long-delayed program aimed at fighting the effects of climate change by subsidizing thousands of electric bicycles.
The random drawing late Thursday was the first time the California Air Resources Board and its San Diego vendor, the nonprofit Pedal Ahead, had pulled off the online application effort without the system crashing.
“The California E-Bike Incentive Project successfully completed the second round of applications for vouchers up to $2,000,” air board spokesperson Brad Branan said by email on Friday.
The state program was able to collect and process more than 100,000 applications, he said.
“There were 128,000 people on the website who were selected for the randomization process,” Branan said. “One thousand applications were accepted and will help reduce cost barriers for low-income Californians.”
The event was a relief to applicants, and likely to officials. The state hired two outside firms to help manage the Thursday night rollout, companies with technological expertise lacking in the prior offerings.
“It seemed to go off without problems this time,” said Ted Rogers, publisher of the BikingInLA blog and a critic of the state program’s repeated delays.
“People who tried to apply were assigned random numbers, then the program posted a notice at 6:27 p.m. that they had chosen 1,000 applicants, just 27 minutes after the window closed,” Rogers said. “Maybe they were actually prepared for the demand this time.”
The California E-Bike Incentive Program was approved four years ago. Lawmakers set aside $31 million to promote the alternatives to smog-spewing cars, but the application process was pushed back repeatedly.
In December, when the Air Resources Board finally made vouchers available to California residents, the website locked out tens of thousands of people within moments of the application period opening.
Four months later, when state officials and Pedal Ahead presented a second opportunity to secure the subsidies, the system crashed again — this time before processing any applications.
The air board blamed that setback on an automated response to a technological security threat.
By May, the state e-bike program announced that it would be putting the program management out to competitive bid later this year, although officials declined to blame Pedal Ahead for the repeated failures.
Pedal Ahead collected more than $2 million to manage the program after running a similar effort for the San Diego Association of Governments.
But the regional planning group took back operation of the local program amid an investigation into its reporting practices. The San Diego Union-Tribune later reported that the nonprofit was the subject of multiple investigations.
State officials said they expect to select a new program manager later this year and distribute the remaining funds earmarked for the program in one major online push in the coming months.
