Santa Monica Leads on Bike Share, But Is Willing to Let the Region Catch Up

While researching the Streetsblog Los Angeles story concerning the new regional push for bike share, I had a chance to talk with Santa Monica Mayor Pam O'Connor about what role Santa Monica has in the regional effort. As Gary Kavanagh reported last month, Santa Monica leaped Long Beach and Los Angeles in the race to be the first L.A. County city to have bike share when it approved a motion to pursue proposals for a city-wide bike share system.

Yesterday, Streetsblog reported that a near-majority of the members of the Metro Board of Directors, including O'Connor, is pushing a motion for the county's transit authority to pursue a regional bike share. So what does the Metro motion mean for Santa Monica?

It depends on your point of view. O'Connor promised that Santa Monica would continue to pursue a city-wide, or sub-regional, program even as its neighbors, including Los Angeles, Culver City, West Hollywood and Long Beach, examine what it can take to bring a regional system.

"Hopefully, we're all going to work together, but we can also get something going sub-regionally, " O'Conner commented. "Santa Monica shouldn't have a different bike share system than Los Angeles or Culver City,"

Santa Monica's bike share grant is funded through the California Transportation Commission which requires the city to have its Request for Proposals released this December. When it became clear that regional interests were interested in regional bike share, Santa Monica staff through O'Conner authored a motion to allow an extension of the grant. The motion, now co-sponsored by Garcetti and L.A. County Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky, concludes: