Metro’s bike-sharing program will be available for $20 per month, $40 a year, or $3.50 per half-hour trip, under a fare structure approved by the Los Angeles Metropolitan Transportation Authority board Thursday.

The bike share program is aimed at people who need to take short trips, such as between their home and a nearby train station.

Metro officials say the $20 monthly pass is geared toward frequent users, and will allow riders to check out the bikes 30 minutes at a time at no extra cost. For each additional half-hour, the sharer will be charged $1.75. Once a bicycle is returned, another could be checked out without incurring additional costs for the month.

The $40 annual rate is aimed at less frequent bike sharers, who will be charged $1.75 for each half-hour of use on top of the annual charge. The walk- up rate will be $3.50 per half-hour.

Metro Board chair and Los Angeles County Supervisor Mark Ridley-Thomas said the agency plans to offer promotional rates to “encourage everyone to take our bikes for a spin.”

The walk-up rate will be reduced to $1.75 per half-hour during the first two months of the program. Promotions for the monthly and annual passes are also being created, but Metro officials have yet settle on the details.

Metro officials say the bikesharing program will only be available to monthly and annual pass holders in the initial month of the program, with individual “walk-up” sharing offered about a month later.

Metro plans to roll out the bike-share program in downtown Los Angeles first, starting the middle of next year, with 1,000 bicycles and 80 stations.

An expanded program that includes about 4,000 bicycles and nine additional areas around the county — including Pasadena, Huntington Park, East Los Angeles, Hollywood and Koreatown — is also being worked out.

Metro is also developing a method for using the existing TAP cards as a way to check out the shared bikes.

Santa Monica recently launched its own bike-sharing program, with 500 bicycles, 75 bike stations and another four in Venice, an adjacent neighborhood in the city of Los Angeles.

— Wire reports 

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