What’s a pedestrian advocacy organization doing talking about bike-share? Quite a lot, actually.
Over the past year, Los Angeles Walks has worked alongside Metro, BikeLA, CicLAvia, and Walk 'n Rollers to support the expansion of Metro Bike Share through the Better Bike Share Partnership’s Living Labs initiative. Our role has been to activate our network of Safe Street Advocates— promotores —to lead school-based and virtual workshops for people who walk and rely on transit every day. For them, bike-share isn’t just a convenience—it’s a potentially transformative tool for accessing work, school, and community.
This work isn’t about promoting a brand. It’s about connecting community members, many of whom don’t own a car or a bike and have never been to an open streets event like CicLAvia, to a shared public resource that could expand their freedom of movement. We invite caregivers and families to try out the system in their own neighborhoods. The interest is there. The need is real. But only if we build the system with those riders in mind.
That’s why Metro’s recommendation to award the next phase of Metro Bike Share to Lyft—again—feels misaligned with community priorities.
Bicycle Transit Systems (BTS), the current operator, is a women-led company that worked with us and so many others to make bike-share actually function on the ground. Their staff did the often invisible work: hauling bikes to neighborhoods without docking stations so community groups could host safe rides, troubleshooting the system, and navigating Metro’s bureaucracy to respond to real needs. Sophie Nenner, who manages the L.A. team, regularly joined partner meetings, listened, and incorporated feedback. That kind of local, values-based partnership is rare.
But it wasn’t just the way BTS worked with us. It was also how they treated their team. Their workers—the ones doing the literal heavy lifting to maintain a system full of hardware in constant motion—receive generous benefits, including a 4-day workweek. In a world where labor is often exploited for convenience, BTS chose to value people. I can’t help but wonder what those working conditions will look like under a company like Lyft, which has a documented history of labor violations and unfair practices.
There’s a story I’ll never forget. A bike in the system had been tagged with graffiti—what some might call vandalism. Instead of scrubbing it off and moving on, the BTS team saw it as street art. They took photos and pinned them up in the warehouse before making repairs. That small act was a reminder: these bikes don’t exist in a vacuum. They belong to the streets and the people who live there. The way a system treats neighborhoods is just as important as how many bikes it deploys.
Of course, we understand the financial pressures shaping this moment. The City of Los Angeles is in the midst of a severe budget crisis. Just last week, mobility justice advocates gathered outside City Hall to protest proposed cuts that could eliminate crossing guards, delay sidewalk repairs, and halt bike lane projects. These are life-saving investments. Meanwhile, Metro’s budget remains relatively stable, at least for now. But that stability should be an opportunity to lead and invest in systems that prevent harm, rather than wait for a crisis to force our hand. With traffic violence claiming over 300 lives a year in Los Angeles—nearly one every day—failing to act shows just how disconnected our institutions have become from the needs of the people.
Let’s be clear—this has been a long-standing challenge. When we rely on private operators to deliver essential transportation services like bike-share, we often end up with systems that lack equitable access and local accountability. A truly effective transportation network must be designed with and for the people who depend on it most—centering the needs of low-income, transit-reliant Angelenos and prioritizing long-term community benefit over short-term profit.
If we want bike-share to thrive, we have to treat it as the public good it is. That means public investment, strong labor standards, meaningful community partnerships, and deep respect for the people who make the system work—both the residents who rely on it and the workers who keep it running.
We understand that we’re in a moment of financial strain. But that makes it even more important to ensure any private partnership is grounded in public values: transparency, equity, and local reinvestment. If private operators are part of the path forward, then we must hold them accountable to deliver a system that truly serves the public.
Bike-share should belong to all of us. Especially those with the fewest mobility options and the most to gain from a system that truly serves them.
Alex Ramirez is the Executive Director of Los Angeles Walks, a nonprofit advancing mobility justice by building community power to make LA’s streets safe and walkable for everyone. She leads grassroots efforts that mobilize Angelenos to advocate for people-centered active transportation.
