The Los Angeles City Council Tuesday backed a proposed dockless bikeshare program aimed at improving transportation options by driving down the cost of bicycle rentals.

Councilman David Ryu introduced a motion last year calling on city staff to develop a pilot bike-sharing system accessible through a phone app that allows people to find and unlock nearby bicycles and drop them off anywhere they are allowed, with no docking station or kiosk required.

The council’s 14-0 vote directs city staff to report back in 45 days with draft rules and regulations for a dockless bikeshare program.

Other cities in the United States and China have experimented with dockless bike sharing and had “haphazard rollouts of programs that led to bikes being left in a fashion that cluttered the public right of way,” according to Ryu’s motion.

Griffith Park and an area of Council District 15 that includes San Pedro, Wilmington and Watts already have dockless bike programs with a total of about 350 bikes between the two areas, according to a report prepared by the Department of Transportation.

The report noted that dockless bikeshare systems are in more than 30 cities in the United States, including Seattle, which has 9,000 bikes and is expected to increase that number to 15,000.

According to the report, the department is still developing the pilot program and does not yet have an estimate on its size or cost.

–City News Service

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