Long Beach puts the brakes on DecoBike plan

City officials recently put the brakes on a plan to launch a bike-sharing program in Long Beach after an outcry from residents who noticed workers tearing up several grassy medians in residential neighborhoods to accommodate bike-rental stations.

City Manager Jack Schnirman said that the city is re-evaluating its contract with DecoBike to install the stations, or kiosks, in residential areas. Last year, the city approved a partnership with Miami-based DecoBike to launch a public bicycle-sharing program that would make roughly 400 bikes available on Long Beach streets.

In July, the City Council voted 3-2 to approve a five-year contract with DecoBike, which operates a similar program in Miami Beach. Under the terms of the contract, DecoBike would be permitted to set up 20 to 30 rental kiosks at locations throughout the city, and the city would receive 10 percent of the company’s gross income and 10 percent of its advertising income.

Former City Manager Charles Theofan said that the program could generate as much as $300,000 in annual revenue for the city and as much as $5 million for DecoBike, a projection that Councilmen Mike Fagen and Len Torres, who voted against the program, said was an overestimate.

At the solar-powered kiosks, users rent bikes with credit cards and drop them off — at the same location or at any other kiosk — when they are finished with them.

The company is investing $1 million in the initiative, city officials said, and is also assuming the cost of installing bike lanes throughout the city.

The program was to begin this spring. Several weeks ago, however, residents noticed that medians were being torn up and cemented over, and many said they were never informed about the work.

“When my husband asked the workers what they were doing and why, they said they had no idea,” Lafayette Boulevard resident Michelle Knox told the Herald in an email. “This was done without any notice to residents.”

Knox said that when she and her neighbors called City Hall, they were told that the contractors had been issued a stop order.