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If you had us guess which was the first city on the West Coast to roll out its a bike-sharing program, we'd have guessed that Seattle, Portland or San Francisco would have had something by now. Or we'd have guessed that Long Beach, Los Angeles or at least a city in Los Angeles county would have been first to roll out a program in Southern California.
But no, it's Anaheim making the claim that it's the first city to roll out a bike rental program on the entire West Coast. You can check out a bike starting this weekend, city officials say. Props!
The self-service bike-sharing programs have cropped up in cities, including Denver, Minneapolis and Paris. You swipe your credit card and check out a bike at one kiosk before dropping it off at the next (hopefully) conveniently-located kiosk.
"It’s an exciting opportunity," Kris Murray, a city councilwoman, told the Los Angeles Times.
The only drawback? There's apparently only one kiosk that they're rolling out this weekend at Harbor Boulevard and Lincoln Avenue in Anaheim. But the company Bike Nation, which is working on Los Angeles' system, eventually plans to roll out 9 more kiosks with a total of 100 bikes at locations, including the convention center, the Metrolink station and the Anaheim GardenWalk.
A single 24-hour membership is $6, the Times says. A monthly membership is $35, and trips shorter than 30 minutes will be free.
