L.A. and Santa Monica Finalize Terms For Venice Bike-Share Stations

Yesterday, The Los Angeles City Council Transportation Committee approved terms for five Breeze bike-share stations to be located in the L.A. City neighborhood of Venice. Full details are available in the staff report [PDF] for council file 16-0176.

The Santa Monica City Council approved a similar agreement earlier this week. At that meeting, the Santa Monica City Council approved the five-station expansion into Venice. As part of that decision, the Santa Monica approved adding up to an additional 15 stations in the future. There are still a few more approvals necessary, including the full L.A. City Council and the Coastal Commission, but it appears that Breeze bike-share is on track for welcome near-Santa Monica expansion.

The five planned Venice locations are expected to be:

• Venice Boulevard at Abbot Kinney Boulevard
• California Avenue at Abbot Kinney Boulevard
• Windward Plaza (where Windward Avenue ends at Venice Beach)
• Ocean Front Walk at Rose Avenue
• Rose Avenue at 5th Street

These locations may change somewhat as final approvals and permitting processes get underway.

In other L.A. County bike-share news: 

• Beverly Hills is currently seeking volunteers to test out its smart-bike bike-share system, which will feature 50 bikes and ten docking stations. The system testing pilot is scheduled to start on February 22 and to be open to the public starting in April.
• Long Beach, West Hollywood and downtown Los Angeles are slated to have systems up and running this year.
• The Santa Monica, Beverly Hills, Long Beach and West Hollywood systems are all smart-bike systems operated by the vendor CycleHop, so, theoretically, they will be easily interconnected. Users can see all the bikes on the same mobile app, and it should be easy to offer interoperability features including reciprocal membership and potentially exchanging bikes between service areas - such as checking a bike out in West Hollywood and turning it in in Beverly Hills.