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Santa Monica Votes to Pursue Bike Share Program
Reflective Buttons with Bike & Park and Santa Monica Bike Center Logos. Photo via Facebook.
The Santa Monica City Council approved a motion to move forward with soliciting request for proposals for a city-wide bike share program on Tuesday night according to Santa Monica Next. The motion passed 5-1 with Bob Holbrook dissenting and Pam O'Connor absent.
The interesting part of the story notes that Santa Monica is the only regional city in Los Angeles County with funding in place for the bikes. The partnership between Long Beach and Bike Nation seems to have stalled although Bike Nation said it is ready to go early in 2014.
According to Santa Monica Next, the flag bearer on the council was Councilman Kevin McKeown who was reportedly armed with bike puns. "Let’s not delay another day, critiquing the tendency for neighboring cities all waiting and deferring for the other to go first on a new idea, and that sometimes a city needs to lead," McKeown said.
Of course this is merely a first step. The process of the actual infrastructure of the program, revenue models and implementation needs to be hashed out. But it is farther and more concrete than most other cities in the area, including Los Angeles, have gone.
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