E-bikeshare is back in Santa Monica, following the demise of Jump Bikes after their sale to Lime earlier this year.
Now Lyft is introducing a new ebike system in partnership with the city.
The bikes will be docked at the existing Breeze bikeshare docks, after Santa Monica’s municipal bikeshare bites the dust this November, eventually expanding to 500 bikes.
Here’s what the company has to say.
The new ebikes allow riders to travel around Santa Monica and West Los Angeles with less effort. When the rider pedals, the ebikes use a small electric motor to boost the rider’s pedal power, making longer trips easier and more accessible. Users will be able to rent ebikes in the Lyft app for $1 to unlock and $0.34 per minute – just scan the QR code and go. Riders can lock the bikes to any one of 80 Breeze stations with the attached cable, or to any public bike rack within the service area for an extra $1. For more about pricing and service area, visit the Lyft website…
Lyft also offers a Community Pass for bikes and scooters in Santa Monica. The Lyft Community Pass is a reduced-fare membership program for qualifying residents of Santa Monica and LA. Membership costs $5/month and includes discounted ebike rides at $0.05/min. The Community Pass program is available to residents ages 18 and older who qualify for the Big Blue Bus Low Income Fare is Easy (LIFE) program, Calfresh, Medicaid, SNAP, or the SCE Energy Savings Assistance Program and to qualifying Santa Monica Community College students.
Correction: I originally wrote that Jump had been acquired by Lyft, but they were actually purchased by Lime. My apologies for the error.
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Speaking of Santa Monica, David Drexler confirms that the 5 mph speed limit signs have been removed from the newly widened beachfront Marvin Braude bike path through the city.
As we noted last week, the signs with the ridiculously low speed limit were installed temporarily as part of a construction project.
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It looks like they’ve finally gotten around to patching that gaping hole in the Arroyo Seco Bike Path, which should be open again soon.
The lengthy delay in getting it fixed could stem from the mishmash of public agencies involved in the repair work, including, but possibly not limited to,
- LADOT
- Bureau of Engineering
- Board of Public Works
- LA County
- Regional Water Quality Control Board
- StreetsLA (nee Bureau of Street Services)
Maybe someone should form a single umbrella agency to manage the city and county river channel bikeways so it doesn’t take the local equivalent of a UN Security Council negotiation every time something goes wrong.
I’m told credit goes to LA Bicycle Advisory Committee member John Laue for getting this done.
Thanks to Kent Strumpell for the heads up.
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Researchers at San Jose State University want your input on a survey exploring the relationship between mandatory helmet use regulations and adult cyclists’ behavior in California.
Scroll all the way down to agree to participate.
Thanks to Robert Leone for the link.
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You may remember Christopher Kidd from his days running the LADOT Bike Blog, which is about the last time the agency communicated effectively to the general public.
Since then, he’s been building a successful career as a Complete Streets planner in the Bay Area.
Which should make this an interesting talk.
Centering equity in transportation planning is long overdue, but methods and tools are rapidly developing to meet the challenge. Join me, @remix and @TransForm_Alert this Wednesday to hear about & discuss our workhttps://t.co/8KlzdOewqv
— Christopher Kidd (@BikeBlogChris) September 28, 2020
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Local
Bike the Vote LA’s Michael MacDonald has written his own progressive guide to the 2020 election in LA County.
State
Governor Newsom has signed SB-288, which removes CEQA oversight of bike, pedestrian, light rail and bus rapid transit projects, eliminating a tool too often abused by opponents to halt environmentally friendly projects.
La Jolla Black Lives Matter supporters say they’re going to keep drawing chalk signs on the bike path supporting the movement, no matter how many times the city washes them off.
A San Diego op-ed argues that riding a bike isn’t just good for your health, but for your career, as well, allowing you to work out work problems while you ride. I’ve done some of my best work on my bike; it’s particularly effective to get out and ride when you feel stuck.
National
An urban planner writes that we have an “opportunity to make a generational shift to supporting walking, cycling and public transit over vehicular” transportation, and to reclaim our neighborhoods.
WaPo offers advice on how to safely and politely travel bike trails during the Age of Coronavirus.
Outside recommends accessories to make your gravel riding smoother and more comfortable.
Singletracks offers their choices for the best bike seats to bring your toddler along on your mountain bike. But maybe avoid flying down those downhill trails until they get the hang of it.
No bias here. Time Out picks the best bike trails to view fall foliage. But somehow doesn’t manage to name anything west of Texas.
A Seattle man speaks out after a bike cop was caught on video rolling a bicycle over his head during a racial justice protest, saying he was roughed up by arresting officers after the incident, and received no medical attention during the four hours he spent behind bars.
Washington bike riders will now be able to treat stop signs as yields, as the state becomes just the latest to adopt a modified form of the Idaho Stop Law. California should join Oregon and Washington in adopting the law, making it uniform throughout the West Coast.
Denver bike riders are scouring homeless encampments looking for their stolen bicycles.
A Nebraska bike nonprofit is looking for a new home after losing their current location; the organization rescues and restores bicycles, and allows at-risk kids to work on them to earn their first bikes.
He gets it. A Houston writer explains that ghost bikes are memorials to the failure of drivers to pay attention to the road around them.
Michigan conducted a bike safety enforcement crackdown of their own earlier this month, ticketing 186 motorists and giving warnings to 116 drivers and 117 bike riders.
Usage stats for New York’s bridges show the bike boom is still going strong, with ridership up as much as 88 percent over March’s pre-pandemic levels.
International
Cycling Weekly offers advice on how to keep your bike safe at home. My best advice is to keep your bike inside your home if at all possible; if you have to use a garage, make sure it’s locked to something that’s secretly anchored.
A new bike wheel promises to literally suck the smog out of the air from all those stinky cars around you.
A new Brit bike taillight flashes brighter to warn drivers when they’re too close.
In the latest non-scandal to hit the UK, a London councilmember admits he wants to take advantage of the Covid-19 traffic slowdown to make popup bike lanes and street closures permanent. Which was kind of the idea behind the whole thing to begin with.
Stardom has changed life for the better for the 15-year old Indian girl who rode a bike over 700 miles to carry her injured father home earlier this year; she now has a new home, eight bikes, two possible movie deals and an offer to train with the national cycling team when the pandemic loses its grip.
A South African man says he barely survived a bike-jacking when a masked gunman fired at him, because the gun jammed; he was able to escape a second shot on his bike.
A Kiwi writer with a cool name discusses the humiliating yet thrilling experience of learning how to ride a bike as an adult.
A new book argues that Australian police botched the investigation into the death of endurance cyclist Mike Hall during the 2017 Indian Pacific Wheel Race across the continent; Hall was killed by a 19-year old provisional driver, who police absolved of responsibility by claiming Hall was hard to see, despite an array of ultrabright taillights.
Finally…
Your next ebike could be a Beemer — although I like this one better. Before you build a new bike path, maybe make sure you own the land.
And anyone can ride across the country. But how many can claim they rode from Poo Poo Point to Pee Pee Creek?
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Be safe, and stay healthy. And wear a mask, already.
