Los Angeles County Metro Planning and Programming Committee approved a contract Wednesday to implement the city’s first bike-sharing program, but the plan will not include Westwood Village because of the officials’ preference for other areas.
Bike-sharing programs allow people to borrow bikes for a fee from docking stations in participating communities and return them to any of the other stations. New York City and San Francisco, among other cities, have implemented similar programs.
Laura Cornejo, project manager for Metro, said Metro officials will install bike-sharing stations in 12 communities throughout L.A. County, including Beverly Hills and Culver City.
Metro’s Planning and Programming Committee asked vendors Bicycle Transit Systems and B-cycle build and maintain the stations, which are scheduled to open next spring in downtown Los Angeles.
Metro officials said by 2019, they hope they can start the bike-sharing program in central Los Angeles and seven other communities. Officials plan to add Culver City, Hollywood and West Hollywood into the program by 2020.
Avital Shavit, transportation planning manager for Metro, said the organization chose which communities to include in the program by focusing on population density, transit accessibility, employment density and density of transit ridership.
She added Metro officials concluded that West Los Angeles, including Westwood Village, has some bike-sharing readiness, but is not as concentrated as other L.A. communities.
David Karwaski, senior associate director for UCLA Transportation, said UCLA Transportation would prefer to work with the city of Santa Monica on its bike-sharing program because it is a year ahead of the Metro program.
Karwaski said he thinks it is more efficient to participate in Santa Monica’s bike-sharing program because of a planned bike station at the UCLA Medical Center, Santa Monica.
Despite the planned bike hub at the medical center, UCLA Transportation is not currently coordinating with Santa Monica to build a bike station at UCLA, Karwaski added.
Santa Monica will launch a citywide bike-sharing program later this year to provide a transportation supplement for buses and the Expo Line, but the service will be exclusive to Santa Monica, according to a press release.
Stephen Fisher, a recent UCLA alumnus from San Francisco who bikes frequently, said he has heard positive things from other users about the bike-sharing program in San Francisco and thinks Metro’s upcoming program will be just as helpful.
“It’s pretty cheap and safe because you can drop (a rented bicycle) off at any station and not worry about it,” he said.
Shahe Dishakjian, a rising fourth-year biology student, said he thinks Metro should include Westwood in its bike-sharing plans because it would be helpful for students who commute.
“It seems like a no-brainer to have bike sharing near a college campus,” Dishakjian said.
The Metro Board of Directors is expected to vote on the final contract as soon as Thursday. It may modify the implementation schedule and list of communities in the plan based on their interest and ability to provide matching funds for implementation.
Contributing reports by Roberto Luna Jr., Bruin senior staff.