Bike Share at City Council

This Tuesday (Tomorrow!) at 2:00 to 5pm Santa Barbara City Council will decide on a both moving forward with Bike Share as well as needed bike/ped/parking improvements in the Funk Zone. Santa Barbara needs bike share for downtown employees, residents who don't already bike, SBCC students & faculty, and so many more. Let's tell City Council this Tuesday to make sure our program is set up for success. E-bikes are critical for our program's use-fullness for residents of the Mesa, those accessing the City College, and other semi-hilly locations. The Bicycle Coalition produced this report, which highlighted the strong desire for electric bicycles to be part of the program, going back two years ago. Additionally, programs like that of the City of Santa Cruz have demonstrated a 3X increase in use for ebikes. Why start a program that wouldn't be widely used!? That would be like using this 1990's danish coin based bike instead of an app. Here is the council report: 


Similarly, the Funk Zone study and plan will be considered which would allow for increased parking spaces along with a small amount of paid parking on the most congested streets. This is the equivalent of adding a parking structure to the Funk Zone- something that would otherwise be unfeasible. It will also generate much needed funding to leverage grants for pedestrian and bicycling improvements in the funk zone, - just like the Santa Barbara and Yanonali street intersection improvements that address demonstrated safety concerns! Ask City Council to realize the extensive work of the Funk Zone community and our City Staff. Say yes to the Funk Zone plan! Here is the council report:

But we need your help! City Council needs to know that we want a strong, innovative, and responsive bike share system- and that we shouldn't arbitrarily exclude ebikes. We also want council to know that the Funk Zone parking study and plan is important to improving bicycling and walking conditions in the Funk Zone. If you can attend in person, please RSVP here.


Email City Council: (below is part of the email that SBBIKE has just sent, use or modify as you like) If you email about the funk Zone, best to include as a separate email.

"Murillo, Cathy" <>
"Rowse, Randy" <>
"Kristen Sneddon" <
"Eric Friedman" <
Jason Dominguez <>
"Megan Harmon" <
Oscar Gutierrez" <

Dear Mayor and Council,

I support a robust vision for bike share that will best help more Santa Barbara residents, employees and visitors use bicycles to get where they need to go. Please don't restrict what options are available for a bike share program and ensure that whatever program is chosen is well used and responsive to local needs. Bike share is important to those who don't rely on their own bicycle for transportation to start taking short utilitarian trips by bike, increasing bicycle mode share, and reducing congestion and GHG emissions. Electric bicycles are governed by the same laws as bicycles and have been demonstrated to vastly improve the utilization rates of bike share programs. Please don't arbitrarily exclude them from our program.




Ed France

Bicycle Friendly Business

Santa Barbara Bicycle Coalition
P.O Box 92047
Santa Barbara CA 93190
Tax ID: 77-0395986

Bici Centro Locations
Santa Barbara: 434 Olive St (805) 617-3255
Santa Maria: 310 Oak St (805) 623-5763