Want a Bike Share in Your Backyard? If You Live Downtown, Tell Bike Nation

It's been a big week for Bike Nation. While most media will note their plans to bring 2,500 bikes to the City of Long Beach for another Southern California bike share program, a smaller project is going to get big attention in the Los Angeles bicycle community.

Yesterday, Bike Nation announced that registered users can submit locations to them through an online mapping program for bike sharing kiosks in Downtown Los Angeles. Earlier this year, Bike Nation announced plans to bring 4,000 bikes to a bike share program in Los Angeles focusing on Downtown, Hollywood, Westwood and Venice Beach. The Downtown is expected to be the first community to see the kiosks, hopefully by the end of this year.

But where will the bike kiosks go? Bike Nation has been mum on details, but has announced that they will be on both public and private land. The new "suggest a station" web map gives anyone a chance to tell Bike Nation where the kiosks ought to go or give a thumbs up or down to the ones already suggested.

"We understand that the success of a bike share program is based on providing affordable and, most importantly, accessible kiosks located within close proximity to areas of community-interest," writes Bike Nation Chief Operating Officer Derek Fretheim. "This online campaign provides a voice to the community and is something we will certainly take into account as we determine the best kiosk locations in our network."

Directions on how to use the website, provided by Bike Nation, are after the jump.

Here’s the URL: http://www.bikenationusa.com/suggest/

Continue reading for  instructions on how to register and the process for suggesting/commenting.

Instructions:

1. To register, hit the “Register” link in the top right corner and fill out the required form. To protect your identity, our passwords require both a symbol (e.g !, @, #) and a number.
2. Log in with your credentials using the link in the top right corner.
3. To suggest a station, click on the map, fill out the optional comment section, and hit suggest.
4. To comment on a previously suggested site, fill out the optional comment section, and hit “Like” or “Dislike” to submit.

We hope you enjoy this Web App and we look forward to seeing your suggestions! If you encounter any errors or problems, email them at info@bikenationusa.com.