The City of West Hollywood is launching its Bike Giveaway Pilot Program. The program will be giving away 50 bicycles in collaboration with Schwinn to encourage more bicycling and less driving among West Hollywood residents to further the City’s climate action goals.
The City has opened an application portal with program details at www.weho.org/bikegiveaway. West Hollywood residents who are 18 years or older are eligible to apply for a free bike as part of the Pilot Program. The City will collect applications during the next few weeks and is anticipated to select 50 individual recipients in February 2023 through a random lottery.
THE RULES
- All recipients are required to be West Hollywood residents to receive the bike. Acceptable forms of residency verification include utility bills, lease/mortgage agreements
- All recipients must commit to regular usage of bicycles, riding a minimum number of 20 miles per month. All recipients must commit to pre- and post- travel behavior survey as well as monthly reporting of bicycle usage. Monthly reports may include odometer readouts of mileage and trip volume. Failure to comply with reporting requirements or program usage requirements will result in repossession of the bicycle by the City.
- All recipients must commit to following all local laws regarding traffic safety, including the wearing of helmets and other safety equipment, obeying all traffic signals, and riding in designated bicycle lanes.
- All recipients agree to return the bicycle if the City determines the bicycle is being used improperly or insufficiently; failure to comply will result in repossession by the City.
- All recipients agree not to sell or loan the bicycle.
- Recipients are responsible for any maintenance of the bicycle beyond initial assembly.
By getting people out of cars and onto bikes, the Pilot Program aims at supporting multi-modal transportation to reduce citywide vehicle miles traveled while supporting the City’s Core Value of Responsibility for the Environment. In West Hollywood, passenger vehicles and trucks contribute to roughly 1-million average vehicles miles traveled, resulting in more than 62,000 metric tons of carbon dioxide. Choosing a bicycle over a car just once-a-day can lead to an up-to-67% reduction in transportation emissions. As a result, by providing people with bicycles and the option to bike instead of drive, the Bike Giveaway Pilot Program is a great tool to reduce emissions from vehicle miles traveled.
There are many ways to explore West Hollywood without a car. By foot, by bike, or by transit, navigating West Hollywood car-free has never been easier. Going car-free creates new opportunities to run into friends and meet new ones, enjoy fresh air on a beautiful day, see places you never noticed before, and get some exercise along the way.
The City of West Hollywood is committed to supporting multi-modal transportation options and promoting West Hollywood as a walkable and bikeable place. In 2017, the City of West Hollywood adopted its Pedestrian and Bicycle Mobility Plan, which provides a roadmap to improving the City’s pedestrian and bicycle environment. The PBMP identifies several categories of projects including improvements at unsignalized crosswalks, signalized intersections, and bicycle improvements.
[…] thrilled for a second or two when I got the email saying I was a winner of one of the city’s free bikes. Then reality set in.“You’ve been down this road before,” I told myself. […]
[…] thrilled for a second or two when I got the email saying I was a winner of one of the city’s free bikes. Then reality set […]
Maybe look at how Long Beach did the bike lanes. It is very safe and fun to ride a bike there. Thank you.
Great idea!!
Hot Take: I find the timing very odd that while they’re trying to convince residents that bike lanes on Fountain would be an “awesome” prospect for everyone. I’d like to find out who funded/provided these bikes. It’s quite obvious they’re doing everything they can to appease the developers and wealthy new and incoming residents that it’s nice to live in a tricked out building like The Pendry. I see right through the smoke! It’s not safe to ride on a hilly, windy street like Fountain for most people, including myself. Bike lanes aren’t going to change that. Case in point,… Read more »
Good to see the city making a small effort to promote human powered mobility instead of motor, motor and more motor powered mobility.
Absolutely. As a regular cyclist, I wish every city would do more.
How fast will all the renter freeloaders grab these bicycles, agree to the conditions, then sell them on eBay just as fast as they can? After all these years, almost no one still uses the unsafe incredibly dangerous bike lanes the City put in on Santa Monica Boulevard. We had dumb City Councilmembers and staff back then, and we have even dumber ones now. And many of the same people are still there, now with their $300,000+ per year City jobs.
Yikes, sounds like a nice idea.
You consider renters “freeloaders”? My goodness, then the majority of the residents of the City are “freeloaders”. You do know that renters make up the majority, don’t you? I don’t understand why you are so angry. Can you explain it to?
Yes, anyone not paying fair market rent, which is most renters in West Hollywood, are getting a free ride, which is subsidized by their landlord. Thus, they are freeloaders, albeit legal freeloaders due to the outrageous Communistic rent control laws in the city. Try to imagine if you are paid a monthly salary, if the city capped that by half of what you currently make, it’s no different from landlords forced to charge half of what the fair market allows. Try again. Not sure why you think I’m angry, just because I point out facts that you choose not to… Read more »
You are always angry about something.
And many landlords do as little as possible.
A vicious cycle, you would claim, but too many landlords are unscrupulous and uncaring.
I love rent control – everybody should have it.
Read about these crooks:
https://www.realpage.com › vendor-marketplace
The apartment “market rate” these days is set by large wealthy corporations who can afford to leave properties vacant until their ever higher rates are accepted, and of course it’s the minority of people who own investment properties who follow along happily. The needs of the average many outweigh the needs of the greedy and wealthy few. And you won’t see any tears for those siding with large wealthy corporations controlling the housing stock. If that makes me a communist, ok then, I’m a communist, but that’s no insult.
Homeowners have “rent control” too.
By your logic there are huge numbers of Weho homeowners not paying their fair share, subsidized by everyone else. But I guess having a stable place to live and other economic benefits should only go to those who are wealthy enough to buy in the first place?
https://calmatters.org/california-divide/2022/04/california-prop-13-neighborhoods/