Bike Share Returns to Los Angeles, 100 Bike Nation Bikes at CicLAvia

The next CicLAvia is a week from Sunday, April 15.

That news is old to regular Streetsblog readers by now, but tomorrow morning the media campaign to ready the general public gets its official launch when Mayor Villaraigosa, a host of public officials and CicLAvia volunteers and staff gather to "invite Angelenos to get out of their cars and on to the streets" for CicLAvia IV.  While the media campaign starts tomorrow, CicLAvia staff and volunteers believe that CicLAvia IV will continue the trend of bringing a record number of Angelenos out to party in the streets.

""With the volume of emails and web traffic we've seen, I think April 15th is going to be even bigger and better than past CicLAvias," writes Joe Linton.

Each CicLAvia has brought something new.  The first CicLAvia brought, well, CicLAvia and the last one had an extended route and the "mini-grants" bringing new adventures to the streets so that there were events even for the hardest core bicyclists.

CicLAvia IV's new wrinkle: the formal arrival of bike sharing.

This year, CicLAvia partners with Bike Nation, the only Los Angeles-based bike share company, to provide 100 free bikes for CicLAvia to the first Angelenos to sign up online. The renters will be able to pick up their reserved bikes at the MacArthur Park Hub or at the El Pueblo Hub.   When details are announced how you can reserve your bike, we will post them here.

Bike Nation is already on the ground in cities across the country including Denver and Anaheim.  Bike Nation also participated in a "bike share demonstration" held earlier this year by Metro.  At this point, there has been no announcement of a permanent bike share presence in the city, but the idea is clearly gaining momentum.

Tomorrow's press conference will also feature the unveiling of a new P.S.A. campaign sponsored by the Mayor's Office, LACBC City of Lights and Bici Libre campaign in the spirit of the "Give Me 3" campaign from 2010.  The final poster design and video P.S.A., available in Spanish will be released tomorrow as well.