Bikesharing is coming to the city of Santa Barbara.

Rob Dayton, the city’s transportation and parking manager, unveiled the bicycles at Tuesday’s Santa Barbara City Council meeting. 

“This is around a $2,000 bike,” Dayton said. “This is not cheap by any means. This is a high-quality piece of machinery that will be available for people.”

The city is going to partner with vendor BCycle, and plans an inital rollout of 250 bicycles by May, and kick it off at CycleMaynia.

The bikes will initally be launched in the downtown and waterfront areas, along with Santa Barbara City College. 

“With success, we will possibly roll it out ideally to target the East and Westside,” Dayton said. 

Currently, the pricing structure is proposed as $30 for monthly use, $150 for annual use, and $5 for single, walk-up use, for every 30 minutes. 

“This is a bike share; we don’t want it to be a bike rental,” Dayton said.

The move is the latest attempt by transportation officials to incorporate the type of modern alternative transportation features seen in larger cities such as Los Angeles, Portland and Austin, Texas into Santa Barbara.

With a wave of ambitious millennials at tech companies downtown, Dayton and others in the transportation department are trying to offer features that are attractive to younger people, and possibly lure them out of their cars.

Santa Barbara previously dabbled in car-sharing, but the program never took off. When a company dropped scooters onto State Street, the city quickly impounded them, in attempt to guard against the ugly proliferation of the vehicles scattered all over town.

But the city believes it may have it right this time with bike share. The bikes will be docked, so people cannot just leave them anywhere on the street.

“Santa Barbara is a great place,” said Morgan Ramaker, executive director of BCycle. “It is a great place for biking. We couldn’t be happier to be partnering with you and take it to the next level with bikeshare.”

The electric bikes will require pedaling to get started, but can offer a motorized assist for going uphill. The dock is also the charging station.

“I am just really excited about this,” said Councilwoman Kristen Sneddon. 

One member of the public raised concerns. 

Teddi Drew, who along with her husband, Reggie Drew, own Santa Barbara Trolley and Wheel Fun Rentals, is concerned that the city’s bikeshare program could affect the businesses they have run for more than 35 years. 

“Wheel Fun rentals will be greatly affected by the bikeshare,” Teddi Drew said. “A rental time of no more than 30 minutes is in need, and is a necessary time limit that must be implemented with the bike share program. 

About 30 minutes is enough time to travel the city, Teddi Drew said. She said the bikeshare program should be geared toward local bike commuters, not tourists. 

“If the tourist population were to have the benefit of using these bikes, you would be putting not only my business, but four other businesses out of business,” she said.

Dayton said Wheel For Fun provides 100,000 rides annually to people, and the business is an important part of the community.

“We’re concerned about local businesses not being impacted,” Dayton said. “We do agree with the Drews and other businesses that we don’t want this to be a rental experience. We will work on a structure that minimizes the length of ride, most likely by pressure of cost.”

Dayton said that, after the rollout, the transporation staff will learn things and adjust the program. 

“This is such a big deal for Santa Barbara,” he added. 

— Noozhawk staff writer Joshua Molina can be reached at jmolina@noozhawk.com. Follow Noozhawk on Twitter: @noozhawk, @NoozhawkNews and @NoozhawkBiz. Connect with Noozhawk on Facebook.