Public Transportation Fail in Los Angeles: Metro Bike Share & More

This was the only electric bike in the rack and it had zero charge. Even if there are a couple more bikes fully charged, most of the time they are locked and not available to ride — poor sensor availability system!

Congestion in the city of Los Angeles is so bad, I’ve driven 30–40 minutes for a 4.5-mile commute to work, and that doesn’t include walking time of 10–20 minutes to my car parked in a structure or on the street. Good motivation to try all the different transportation options!

The L.A. Metro Share bicycles are so heavy, you want an electric bike but there might only be two or three in the racks at a station. Once you go through the whole process to check one out, nine out of 10 times (I’ve counted) none of those electric bikes are available — which means the bike rack sensors are faulty because there is usually plenty of juice in the battery and the bikes are locked in securely. That’s after the whole process of using a cleansing wipe for the filthy handlebars, hand brakes, seat, and station kiosk screen. If a bike you think is available is not, you have to clean another bike. And you have to clean the bike before checking out the bike through the kiosk screen and your phone because you have limited time to pull the bike out of the rack before you have to start all over — it beeps, counting down and then locks again. (I prefer to have it all clean and ready before I have to touch the bike, that’s just me). When an electric bike is available, they get up to 17 mph, so I can get to work in 20 minutes!