Metro Bringing Bike Share Pilot To Echo Park Next Week

By Natalie FigueroaA bike share pilot is coming to Echo Park next week, just in time for a CicLAvia event ceding the normally car-clogged streets to cyclists.

The pilot program is bringing a kiosk and 19 bikes to Echo Park and Park Avenues on October 5, just before the October 8 cycling event.

Metro spokesman Dave Sotero told LAist that the pilot will remain in place indefinitely, “until we’ve collected sufficient feedback and ridership metrics.” The pilot is the latest extension of the ridership agency’s bike share program, which began downtown in 2016 and has since expanded to the Port of L.A., Pasadena, and Venice. The whole system now has more than 1,400 bikes, according to a press release from the city.

Metro is considering expanding to more than 20 parts of L.A. County, Sotero says, including Hollywood, MacArthur Park, Koreatown, Burbank, East LA, Glendale, Culver City and Palms.

“There are a lot of different factors involved in a decision to install bike share,” Sotero says. “Density within a geographic area, the city’s ability to work with Metro, the bicycle infrastructure already present in that area, what things people can access using bike share.”

Ridership metrics in Echo Park will help the ridership agency decide on the feasibility of setting up a permanent bike share near the lake.

[h/t: Eastsider LA]

Related: Metro's Bike Share Program Logged 182,482 Trips In Its First Year