by Mark McDermott\u00a0<\/p>\n
The Manhattan Beach City Council approved a six month trial of the microtransit operator Circuit, a public-private partnership that will allow residents and visitors to catch low-cost rides on electric vehicles throughout the city.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The service will deploy five electric vehicles \u2014 two neighborhood electric vehicles (NEVs), two sedans and one wheelchair-accessible van \u2014 across the entire city, with service extending to the Metro K Line\u2019s Douglas Station in El Segundo. Riders will use an app to hail a ride, similar to Uber or Lyft, with fares significantly cheaper than commercial rideshare services.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s from your home to where you want to go and back again,\u201d City Traffic Engineer Erik Zandvliet said. \u201cIt doesn\u2019t have a bus stop, although it can drop you off at a bus stop.\u201d<\/p>\n
The council voted 3-1, with one abstention, on Tuesday night to authorize the city manager to execute an agreement with Circuit Transit Inc. and appropriate up to $540,626 in Proposition A Local Return Funds for the pilot program. Council members Nina Tarnay, Amy Howorth and Mayor David Lesser voted in favor. Mayor Pro Tem Joe Franklin voted no. Council member Steve Charelian abstained.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The motion, proposed by Tarnay and seconded by Howorth, was a hybrid of two staff-recommended service alternatives. It called for a discounted fare for seniors, with a regular rate for other riders, and modified operating hours of roughly 11 a.m. or noon to 9 or 10 p.m., with some variation by day of the week. The motion also directed staff to explore city-provided EV charging to reduce costs, and to pursue corporate sponsorships and advertising revenue \u2014 though no alcohol advertising during the pilot period.<\/p>\n
Tarnay framed the pilot as both a transportation investment and an economic one, noting the city\u2019s congested summer streets and the coming influx of World Cup visitors.<\/p>\n
\u201cI see it as an investment in our businesses,\u201d Tarnay said. \u201cThese people are going to spend dollars\u2026 We\u2019re going to be able to take some of the cars off the street.\u201d<\/p>\n
Circuit Transit, a Fort Lauderdale-based company founded in 2011, operates similar services in more than 40 markets nationwide, including Long Beach, Santa Monica, Whittier, Huntington Beach and San Diego. The company claims more than 8 million rides to date across its network. It was formerly known as The Free Ride, a competitor to the Downtowner shuttle service that briefly operated in Manhattan Beach in 2017.<\/p>\n
The Downtowner\u2019s rise and fall loomed over Tuesday\u2019s discussion. That service, a partnership between the city and the Downtown Business and Professionals Association (DBPA), ran from February to October 2017, using three six-person NEVs to shuttle riders around the western portion of the city for free. Ridership peaked at 3,000 per month in August 2017, but the operator couldn\u2019t sustain its free-ride business model and asked the city for a large financial contribution. The city declined, and the service folded.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was not for lack of ridership that that didn\u2019t work,\u201d Howorth said. \u201cIt was their business plan, and that was on them.\u201d<\/p>\n
The key difference this time is that the city is the paying customer from the outset, with rider fares, advertising and other revenue sources intended to offset \u2014 but not fully cover \u2014 the cost. Staff recommended Alternative 2, a six-month pilot with five vehicles operating 11 a.m. to 9 p.m., seven days a week, at $5 per ride. At that fare level, the gross monthly cost of roughly $90,000 would be reduced to a net cost to the city of approximately $72,000 per month after projected fare revenue, according to staff estimates based on about 3,000 rides per month.<\/p>\n
Zandvliet said the pilot was designed to gather data \u2014 on ridership levels, peak demand times, rider demographics, and the most popular pickup and dropoff locations \u2014 that would inform whether the service should continue, expand, or be modified after the initial six months.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe idea is to get the pilot project in there first, and get the data out of that,\u201d Zandvliet said.<\/p>\n
The pilot is funded entirely from the city\u2019s Proposition A Local Return account, a restricted fund generated by Los Angeles County sales tax revenue designated for local transit purposes. The city currently has approximately $1.1 million in the Prop A fund balance. Finance Director Libby Bretthauer said the reserve had grown in recent years as the city\u2019s Dial-a-Ride program stabilized costs, but cautioned that the fund could not sustain a microtransit program on an ongoing basis without changes.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe can fund the pilot program,\u201d Bretthauer said. \u201cBut we just wanted to make it clear that we wouldn\u2019t be able to fund this on an ongoing basis for years to come without making other changes to the Dial-a-Ride program or other programs.\u201d<\/p>\n
Bretthauer also emphasized that Proposition A funds carry a three-year statute of limitations \u2014 if the city doesn\u2019t spend them in a timely manner, the funds must be returned to the county. Cities that lack robust transit programs sometimes exchange their Prop A allocations for general fund dollars at roughly 75 cents on the dollar, a swap Manhattan Beach has done in the past.<\/p>\n
The relationship between the new microtransit service and the city\u2019s existing Dial-a-Ride program was a recurring theme. Circuit\u2019s proposed service, even at its most expensive alternative, would operate at a fraction of Dial-a-Ride\u2019s per-ride cost.<\/p>\n
Lesser said he had been skeptical of the proposal given the Downtowner\u2019s failure, but was persuaded by the broader service area \u2014 the Downtowner never operated east of Sepulveda \u2014 and the potential to gather data on alternatives to the city\u2019s increasingly costly Dial-a-Ride paratransit program.<\/p>\n
\u201cI was skeptical when this item came back,\u201d Lesser said. \u201cBut the whole idea behind this is to facilitate transit to our downtown\u2026 This is viewed as something more inclusive.\u201d<\/p>\n
Howorth argued the council had a fiscal obligation to test a service model that could prove more efficient than the existing Dial-a-Ride program, which costs approximately $940,000 per year to serve roughly 6,500 riders \u2014 about $145 per ride.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe have a fiduciary responsibility to try the pilot,\u201d Howorth said. \u201cThis is the right thing to do at this time.\u201d<\/p>\n
Parks and Recreation Director Mark Leyman, whose department oversees Dial-a-Ride, said the pilot would help determine whether Circuit could supplement or eventually replace some paratransit functions more efficiently, particularly for medical rides, where the city already uses a supplemental Lyft service.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt is inherently inefficient, paratransit,\u201d Leyman said. \u201cThis gives us that opportunity to see if it could be more efficient.\u201d<\/p>\n
Circuit\u2019s Daniel Kramer, the company\u2019s vice president of program development, told the council the company hires local employees as drivers \u2014 not independent contractors like Uber and Lyft, but W-2 employees on Circuit\u2019s payroll, which Kramer said allows for more thorough training, particularly for drivers operating the wheelchair-accessible vehicle. The company also provides real-time ride data to the city, and can customize its fare structure with promo codes, senior discounts, and employee vouchers.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe aim to pool as many rides together as possible, do as much as we can with as little as possible,\u201d Kramer said, describing how the company\u2019s algorithm manages demand by grouping riders heading in the same direction.<\/p>\n
Asked about success metrics in other cities, Kramer said the company\u2019s most common challenge is having enough vehicles to meet demand, not attracting riders.<\/p>\n
\u201cI can\u2019t think of one where it\u2019s been discontinued because of poor ridership,\u201d Kramer said. \u201cIf anything, it comes down to funding.\u201d<\/p>\n
Franklin was the lone dissenter. He questioned the value proposition, particularly for families. At $5 per seat, a family of four would pay $20 for a ride \u2014 a price he argued was comparable to or more expensive than Uber for an equivalent trip within the city.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve been tracking Uber since yesterday afternoon,\u201d Franklin said, reporting that Uber fares for trips across Manhattan Beach ranged from roughly $6 to $10. \u201cIs it going to be worth it? Are we an affluent community that can afford this? Absolutely. Is it going to give them anything other than what\u2019s available now? I don\u2019t know.\u201d<\/p>\n
Franklin also raised concerns about underage riders using the service without parental knowledge, the potential for Waymo\u2019s autonomous ride service to make the investment obsolete, and the fact that the service would not operate late enough to serve as a safe-ride-home option after hours.<\/p>\n
\u201cI just see a lot of confusion on the part of residents,\u201d Franklin said. \u201cI see its limitations.\u201d<\/p>\n
Charelian, who abstained, raised concerns about the timing \u2014 the vote came just weeks before the city enters its annual budget process \u2014 and questioned whether the Prop A reserve might be better preserved as a financial tool, noting that the funds could be exchanged for general fund dollars if needed during a revenue downturn.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf you all look at your dashboards that finance puts up, and you see our revenues are not trending well,\u201d Charelian said. \u201cThere might come a time in the next month that we might need $330,000 in general fund monies, and you could have had this in your toolbox.\u201d<\/p>\n
Several members of the public spoke in support, including Downtown Business and Professionals Association Executive Director Kelly Stroman, who urged the council to approve the program quickly enough to have it operational before the FIFA World Cup this summer.<\/p>\n
\u201cDo it. Green light, turbo charge the EV, whatever it is, and get this rolling by June,\u201d Stroman said. \u201cIt\u2019s not going to do any good to get it rolling by August.\u201d<\/p>\n
Chamber of Commerce President and CEO Jill Lamkin noted that international visitors arriving for the World Cup would be accustomed to public transit and would naturally look for last-mile connections from the Metro line. She also noted that an alternative transportation option to downtown could reduce parking demand enough to satisfy Coastal Commission requirements for outdoor dining permits, a long-sought goal for the city\u2019s restaurants.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf we were to provide a service that would give residents another way to get downtown, that could potentially reduce the parking demand that the Coastal Commission would require of us, should we want to pursue outdoor dining,\u201d Lamkin said.<\/p>\n
The pilot is expected to take 60 to 90 days to launch after the agreement is finalized. If operational by early June, the service would be running in time for the World Cup matches at SoFi Stadium, which begins June 11.<\/p>\n
Circuit\u2019s service area would cover the entire city, with NEVs serving the commercial districts west of Sepulveda Boulevard and sedans and the accessible van serving the broader city. The council directed staff to return before the end of the contract term to discuss whether to extend, modify or end the service based on the pilot\u2019s results. ER\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"by Mark McDermott\u00a0 The Manhattan Beach City Council approved a six month trial of the microtransit operator Circuit,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":191738,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[75,84,83,9,24,63],"class_list":["post-191737","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-manhattan","tag-manhattan","tag-manhattan-headlines","tag-manhattan-news","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-nyc"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/191737","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=191737"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/191737\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/191738"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=191737"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=191737"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=191737"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}