Thomas Safranek, Charlottesville’s e-bike and pedestrian coordinator, administers the city’s e-bike voucher program. Photo: Tristan Williams
Charlottesville has updated and expanded last year’s voucher program to help city residents afford battery-powered e-bikes. Every quarter, the city will give away 12 vouchers in each of three tiers: $500 for any applicant (Tier 1); $1,000 for people earning less than or equal to 80 percent of the area median income (Tier 2); and $1,500 for people on SNAP, WIC, TANF, or Medicaid (Tier 3). Apply by January 31 at cvilleebike.com for the first 2026 drawing on February 4.
Tommy Safranek, the city’s bicycle and pedestrian coordinator, and Tray Biasiolli, climate program specialist, offer insight on the program.
How many vouchers did you give out last year? How many of those vouchers have been successfully claimed? How many have been cashed in at bike shops?
We allocated funding for 100 vouchers in 2025. For vouchers that were not redeemed, those funds were put back into subsequent rounds, so that we ultimately awarded 112 vouchers. Winners from the fourth-quarter drawing are still able to redeem their vouchers, so we don’t have complete redemption data for the full year. For the first three quarters, the redemption rate was 81 percent (61 of 75 vouchers redeemed) and as of [January 16], 79 vouchers total [70 percent of the 112 awarded] have been redeemed.
Do you have data on the income levels of applicants last year?
Roughly 40 percent of 2025 applicants had household incomes below $65,000, and 40 percent were above $100,000. [Winners] are evenly distributed throughout the city.
What lessons did you learn from last year’s program?
We heard from several voucher recipients that an e-bike was still out of reach, even with the voucher incentive. In addition, the voucher redemption rate was lower in the lower-income brackets.
How many people have applied for the February drawing, and how quickly?
[As of January 16], 248 applicants have applied. Last year, on average, we had about 1,100 applicants per round.
Which of the three tiers has drawn the most applicants thus far? The least?
We have about 30 from Tier 3, 20 from Tier 2, and about 200 from Tier 1.
As e-bikes grow more popular, medical groups, including Sentara, are warning about growing numbers of e-bike- and e-scooter-related injuries. What can riders do to ride more safely on e-bikes?*
C’ville is experiencing the same issues as many other places, and e-bikes are rarely the issue, but are getting lumped into the same bucket with e-scooters. E-scooters are harder to balance, so they are more difficult to start, stop, and use hand signals.
Our program is set up to promote safe biking and support new riders as they get comfortable sharing the road with cars and pedestrians. For example, we host an e-bike demo every round [that] applications are open, so folks can get comfortable and ask us or the bike shop staff questions. We have one coming up on January 28 from noon-1pm at the Ting Pavilion.
*UVA Health Trauma Center data shows that recorded e-bike and e-scooter injuries rose from two visits in 2018 to 27 visits in 2025. UVA did not break out injuries from e-bikes and e-scooters.
