West Hollywood’s bike share program is off to a strong start according to the city’s Community Development Department, with 545 people having completed 3,919 trips since its launch on Aug. 30.
The program, dubbed “WeHo Pedals,” offers bicycles for rent at 18 locations around the city. Riders can buy an annual pass for $99 a year, a monthly pass for $25 a month or pay a minimum of $7 an hour for an individual ride. Low-income residents are offered a pass of $7 a month as are students.
A memo from the Community Development Department to the City Council says it would like to include plans that would allow employers to purchase bulk passes for their employees at reduced rates. The city also wants to integrate WeHo’s system with that of other Westside cities. One idea is to make it possible for a WeHo Pedals member to rent a bike from a partner bike share network without having to sign up for a separate account. Another is to let those who have purchased a WeHo Pedals subscription to use the time allocated to them in the neighboring networks. The ultimate goal is to integrate the bike share program in West Hollywood with those in Beverly Hills, Culver City, Long Beach, Santa Monica and UCLA. Each service would have its own name, but it would have a centralized banking system and let someone who rents a bike in WeHo drop it off in Beverly Hills without paying an additional charge.
The WeHo program opened with four bike share stations and ultimately will expand to 20. Stations currently are along Santa Monica Boulevard at La Brea, Fuller, Vista, Genesee, Fairfax, Crescent Heights, Sweetzer, Holloway / North Olive, Westmount, Hancock, San Vicente, Robertson, Willey Lane and Doheny . There also are stations at Sunset Boulevard at Holloway, West Hollywood Park, Beverly Boulevard at San Vicente and Doheny Drive at Melrose.
The Community Development report says possible stations at the Laurel Avenue and Havenhurst pocket parks and on Fountain Avenue were considered but deemed incompatible with standards for locating the stations. The Grove shopping center has reached out to WeHo, which currently is working to establish a station there.
As of Nov. 15, the five most popular station sites for originating a ride are at Santa Monica Boulevard and Olive / Holloway, Westmount, Sweetzer (City Hall), Crescent Heights and Genessee. The top five destinations are at Santa Monica Boulevard and Olive / Holloway, Westmount, Sweetzer (City Hall), Crescent Heights and Beverly Drive and San Vicente. Weekends are the busiest days for WeHo Pedals according to the staff memo.
Of course, Randy, you see in my comment my separating the bikes (good, stands are low to the ground, unobtrusive) from the massive, in- your-face lit up unrelated/unnecessary/ridiculous advertising signs that were put up with the bikes (the extra street clutter).
Has this program gotten an award?
I agree that they need to let it take some time and do an assessment in a year or so. I also think they went overboard on the quantity of bicycles at these locations. It would have been better to begin with half the amount of bikes.
@Randy….Give it time?……I’m afraid we’re forced to do just that.
And, as usual, the city tries to build something to improve the quality of life for residents, which includes reducing traffic congestion, and people have to complain. People complain about everything. “Street clutter?”
No, maybe this system hasn’t been a rousing success so far, and maybe it won’t ever be, but do we have to fault the city for trying? It has worked in other places. Maybe we need to give it time.
Bike Share programs is the du-jour municipal project pitched to cities at community development conventions in Vegas.
Will it work/last?…..We’ll see how long it takes to make that conclusion. But this press release ain’t doing it.
West Hollywood’s bike share program is a very bad idea and will be removed in a few years.
City is often involved in strange projects, as City Ride, Kiosks, WeHo park with two dog parks
and 2 pools… Much better spend money on affordable housing !!!
The bikes stands – fine. But all the huge kiosks (with their large incongruent solar panels) that have been installed along with the bikes giving us even more visual noise, advertising, and street clutter. The city gloats about the wide and open sidewalks achieved over years of time and at great expense and then fills them up with more and more and more stuff. You once could look down a nice open sidewalk or relax at a wide open street corner – now more and more are boxes and ads in your face and an obstacle course to manuever around.… Read more »
Thanks David Wood, that makes sense.
I’m not complaining, less trips, less sidewalk riding.
So that’s about 32 trips per day or about 1.3 trips per hour. No wonder those bike racks are always full.
545?!!!……Really?