By next year Culver City hopes to have caught up with progressive surrounding communities in a popular new way, and here is how:

“Bike share has the potential to greatly expand transportation options for residents, employees and visitors,” the City Council was assured at last evening’s meeting.

After digesting and dissecting the Bike Share Feasibility Study, the Council, just ahead of the midnight hour, unanimously endorsed the study and flashed a green light.

What does that mean?

Eleven months from now, City Hall hopes to strategically spot 280 bikes across Culver City – at sites where bicyclists live or hang out or are likely to patronize.

While other communities have introduced bike share – Santa Monica’s year and a half old program hit a million miles the other day – Culver City has been spot-debating bike share’s worthiness for four years.

In the words of Public Works Director Charles Herbertson, the present fiscal year, which ends Friday, has been consumed by “conducting the feasibility study:

• “To see what bike share might look like in Culver City,
• “What the options are, what the costs are,
• “What it will cost to put it in place, and
• What the ongoing annual cost will be.”

The next move:

To negotiate and to navigate terms with Metro, which will absorb hefty chunks of Culver City’s costs, between 35 percent in one case and 50 percent in another.

Bike sharing is projected to cost City Hall $90,000 a year.

The race is on to catch up with West Hollywood, Beverly Hills, Santa Monica and Long Beach.