An initiative that helped hundreds of Atlantans afford e-bikes, exceeded popularity expectations, and pulled an untold number of vehicles from the city’s clogged streets is gunning for round two.  

Atlanta City Council member Matt Westmoreland tells Urbanize Atlanta he’s introduced legislation for another citywide e-bike rebate program that would save qualified applicants well over $1,000 on e-bike purchases while benefitting local businesses. 

Westmoreland’s legislation calls the initial 2024 e-bike rebate program “a financial and environmental success,” noting that Atlantans spend on average $11,000 on transportation costs each year. It proposes another $1 million donation from the city to fund the program and was cosponsored at a recent meeting by all 13 of Westmoreland’s colleagues present, he said.  

The proposal will next head to the council’s Community Development/Human Services Committee—a board focused on economic development, housing, community engagement, and other matters—for review.

Westmoreland said the legislation is scheduled to come before the full city council in February. 

Should it gain approval, the next e-bike rebate program will kick off later this year. Like last time, rebates would be administered by the Atlanta Regional Commission, while advocacy group Propel ATL will lead community outreach efforts.

A handful of nearly 1,000 Atlantans who earned e-bike rebates through a program that began in summer 2024. Atlanta Regional Commission

When the initial program launched in June 2024, Atlanta became the first city in Georgia—and just the third in the Southeast, alongside Tampa and Raleigh—to offer an e-bike rebate program. The goal was to accommodate a shift from car-dependent travel for Atlantans, cut back on transportation costs, and make e-bike ownership more affordable for a broader swath of society. 

All told, 11,065 Atlantans applied for an e-bike rebate (roughly 2 percent of the city’s total population), and recipients were picked from nearly every neighborhood in town, according to ARC officials. 

Income-qualified Atlanta residents were eligible to receive $1,500 rebates for standard e-bikes, or $2,000 for the larger cargo e-bikes made to tote children, groceries, and other items. (Americans generally spend around $2,000 on their first e-bike purchase, according to eBicycles.)

The rebates were capped at one per City of Atlanta resident, and all e-bikes had to be bought from one of a dozen participating, brick-and-mortar local bike shops.

As the program was unfolding, ARC officials reported that low and moderate-income Atlantans were primarily benefiting. Per the agency, 82 percent of rebate funds (that’s higher than the target 75 percent) were redeemed by income-qualified city dwellers earning 80 percent of the Area Median Income or less. A third of them didn’t own a car, and 85 percent reported they’d use the e-bike for commuting to work and for other essential transportation. 

Westmoreland on social media this week said 900 e-bikes were ultimately put on Atlanta’s streets through the first e-bike rebate program. The second round, he said, is “overdue.”

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