A small fleet of electric shuttles that would ferry people all over town could soon come to Manhattan Beach. At least for a while.<\/p>\n
At its most recent meeting, the Manhattan Beach City Council approved spending about $540,000 on a limited-time pilot program for a citywide electric shuttle service.<\/p>\n
Under the resolution, which was approved April 7, the Council authorized an agreement between the City and Circuit Transit, Inc. for a six-month on-demand “point-to-point local microtransit pilot project services” for a not-to-exceed amount of $540,626.<\/p>\n
The “point-to-point local microtransit” mentioned is a shuttle service that would take people to points across the city for a flat fee.<\/p>\n
“The benefits of a microshuttle service are different from a fixed route service,” City Traffic Engineer Erik Zandvliet explained to the Council during a hearing on the matter.<\/p>\n
“It’s point to point, it takes you to the location where you want to go and back again. There are shorter wait times. It’s app-based, similar to Uber and Lyft; the payment is all online,” he explained.<\/p>\n
Other benefits, he said, are that it can take people to bus stops, light rail stations, and other transportation hubs; it’s less expensive than the aforementioned rideshare services; and it reduces parking demand in highly trafficked areas, such as downtown.<\/p>\n
The cost will be $5 per ride per person; so for a family of four, it would cost $20 to travel one way anywhere in the city.<\/p>\n
Under the contract, Circuit will utilize five shuttles throughout the city.<\/p>\n
Manhattan Beach previously had a shuttle service from January to October of 2017, but it only serviced the western part of the city due to the limited range of electric vehicles at the time.<\/p>\n
The Council was not unanimous in its support of the program. Mayor Pro Tem Joe Franklin said he couldn’t support the measure for multiple reasons, one of them being that he has “deep concerns” about underage kids using the service.<\/p>\n
“Parents don’t know the driver; the assumption of authority is passed on to that driver,” he said. “It just doesn’t give me a comfortable feeling.”<\/p>\n
In the end, the vote to approve was 3-1, with one abstention. Mayor David Lesser and Councilmembers Nina Trieu Tarnay and Amy Thomas Howarth cast the votes in favor, while Franklin voted against and Steve Charelian abstained.<\/p>\n
Charlelian said he thought the service was a good idea, but expressed concerns about the cost.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A small fleet of electric shuttles that would ferry people all over town could soon come to Manhattan…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":191558,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[75,84,83,9,24,63],"class_list":{"0":"post-191557","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-manhattan","8":"tag-manhattan","9":"tag-manhattan-headlines","10":"tag-manhattan-news","11":"tag-new-york","12":"tag-new-york-city","13":"tag-nyc"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/191557","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=191557"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/191557\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/191558"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=191557"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=191557"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=191557"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}