Earlier this week, I joined Mayor Foster and Vice-Mayor Lowenthal in the unveiling of a great new program that will support increased sustainability and quality of life in Long Beach – the new Long Beach Bike Sharing program.

This exciting new project, to be implemented this Spring, will allow residents and visitors to access state of the art bicycles for personal use at central locations throughout the downtown area. And, making a green initiative even greener, one of the best things about this is that the bike kiosks will be solar-powered.

The downtown program will provide over 500 bicycles divided between 50 kiosks, including Downtown area hotels, City Hall, local business corridors, the beach, and in other convenient locations. There will also be another 60 bikes at 6 kiosks on the Cal State Long Beach Campus. If the model works well in downtown and at Cal State, we will look at expanding it city-wide.

The Bike Sharing program is just one of many biking initiatives we are working on. Other city projects include new bike routes, bike sharrows, new bike racks and the new Downtown bike boulevard we are constructing on Broadway and 3rd in Downtown Long Beach.

We are working hard on making Long Beach the most bicycle-friendly, most sustainable, and highest quality of life city in California and in the nation.

Go Long Beach!

Robert Garcia