DecoBike now up and running
Company says bicycles have been installed across the city
Two months after the city officials put the brakes on a plan to launch a bike-sharing program in Long Beach to address quality-of-life and safety concerns, the project is officially a go.
According to Bonifacio Diaz, DecoBike’s chief operating officer, all DecoBike stations are up and running as of Wednesday night.
“Yesterday we made all the stations live,” Diaz said. “We put in over 100 bikes and we’re [adding] more bikes today.”
The bike rental program is part of an agreement with Miami Beach-based DecoBike. Last July, the City Council voted 3-2 to approve the 5-year contract with the company in the hopes of generating revenue for the city.
At the solar-powered kiosks, users can rent bikes using credit cards starting at $4 for 30 minutes and range up to $24 for eight hours. Bikers then drop them off — at the same location of at any other kiosk — when they are finished.
In March, however, city officials postponed the plan after Long Beach residents noticed workers tearing up several grassy medians in residential neighborhoods to accommodate bike-rental stations, and amid concerns over the locations of proposed bike lanes. Corporation Counsel Corey Klein said that the city was re-evaluating its plan and working with DecoBike in the hope of removing the kiosks out of residential areas and installing bike lanes.
“When it came in front of our house we didn’t really know about it, it just sort of popped [up] there,” said Lafayette Boulevard resident Joe Rhatigan, who, along with many of his neighbors, called City Hall and asked that the slab of concrete be removed. “But they took it away, so I had no problem with that.”
The city’s original contract with DecoBike included 17 locations — not including the Long Island Rail Road station and some kiosks planned for the boardwalk. The locations included medians near the intersections of Pacific Boulevard and Shore Road, Lafayette Boulevard and Walnut Street, Magnolia Boulevard and West Olive Street, and East Broadway and Maple Boulevard.
