From Bike Valet to Business: How a Seattle Academy Alum is Changing City Transportation

Written By: Gena Wynkoop, Editorial Content Manager

It wasn’t a love for biking that sparked Seattle Academy alum Kiel Johnson’s ’05 interest in creating a valet bike company. Though growing up close to the Burke-Gilman trail, Kiel hardly ever rode a bike in Seattle. 

It was a crossroads experience for Johnson that led to the inception of Go By Bike. 

First, graduating with a History and Economics degree from Lewis and Clark College in 2009, which was arguably one of the hardest times for a college graduate to enter the workforce.

“It was a pretty bad time to enter the labor market. Housing, the economy—it was a big recession. But [at the same time] it sort of created an opportunity. Anything was possible.”

Then, a trip abroad.

“I went to Copenhagen and the Netherlands and saw what a city could look like if cars weren’t so dominant or the default,” said Johnson. “Bike valets were all over the place, at every train station. There was a bike parking lot with like 12,000 bicycles and I came back [to the States] thinking, ‘Why can’t we do this here?’”

Idea–meet back pocket.

Johnson headed back to Portland, Oregon, scrounged some cash and purchased a camper trailer that he parked at the bottom of the Portland Aerial Tram, a high-traffic area moving roughly 10,000 people per day from Portland’s South Waterfront to Marquam Hill.

As busy as the gondola is, setting up shop down there was a lucrative move. “I started fixing bikes because there weren’t any other jobs to do,” laughed Johnson. “Then I pitched this idea of running a free bike valet service to encourage people to ride their bikes.” 

Now, 11 years later, the business has parked over 600,000 bicycles, has a bike loan program, a repair shop and a pedicab service.

“There is no other business like Go By Bike in the United States. A lot of commuters ride their bikes to the bottom of it and we park them. It’s the most biked-to destination in the United States.” Cyclists will pull up, scan their pass, ditch their bike (safely, of course) and continue on their merry ways.

“We park about 200 to 300 bikes a day on average. We also have workers repairing bikes while folks are at work. The whole point is to make it more convenient [for cyclists].”

Integrating bicycles into the neighborhood is a top priority. A parking lot that can fit 460 bikes in a space is much more efficient than using the same space that could maybe park 20 cars.

The way that Johnson tactfully thinks about cities, optimizing how they operate and how their citizens experience the streets, was directly impacted by his time at SAAS, from 1998 to 2005.

“Being at SAAS gave me an appreciation for the city life and what’s possible,” said Johnson. “We were a part of the neighborhood. Capitol Hill is a really unique space. It’s a very dense place–it’s all happening right there.”

“A lot of schools don’t get to experience that. I didn’t appreciate it as much at the time, but have come to appreciate just being able to walk around the streets.”

[Read: Two SAAS Students Provide Bicycles to Factory Workers in Togo, West Africa]

Beyond the neighborhood, there were integral lessons learned at SAAS that Johnson credits his entrepreneurial spirit to.

“I think in general, SAAS sort of teaches you that you can accomplish a lot. You can just go for it and you have the support to follow your passions and try different things even if you aren’t necessarily an expert,” said Johnson.

“[That mentality] helped me try to start a bike shop with a trailer, on the river, with no experience being a bike mechanic or running a business. That value is something I gained at SAAS and it’s something you don’t get from most other schools.”

As for the future of Go By Bike and city transportation in general, Johnson knows that he’s made a small but mighty dent in making commuting by bike more mainstream.

“I would love to be a consultant to help other people expand nationwide,” said Johnson. “Electric bikes are really big right now and I’m interested in trying to figure out how they can change how we get around. They have a lot of potential.”

Consulting, electric bikes, valet and trying to imagine cities where a certain percent of all trips are made by bike could solve a lot of issues–issues that we are currently facing nationally and even globally. 

While the city of Portland is spending billions of dollars to widen six miles of urban freeway, Johnson argues that rethinking those resources would be cheaper and more effective in the long run.

“Cities need to invest more and build better bike infrastructure. We’ve got a lot of issues that need to be fixed and we haven’t fixed them yet,” said Johnson. “It needs to be different than our current world. We need young people to be willing to think about a world that’s different than what exists right now – and have the drive to try new things even if they don’t always work out.”

For more information on Go By Bike, visit their website or follow them on Instagram.