The new Santa Barbara center, for example, is funded by downtown car parking fees. It contains $80,000 in equipment and is expected to cost $25,000 a year to operate.
Pasadena, meanwhile, is preparing plans for a bike center near the Gold Line light-rail stop in Old Town. The city hopes to use $180,000 in state grant money to build a facility that will hold 40 bikes.
Santa Monica hopes to build a downtown bike center with room for 300 bikes. In the meantime, the city parks 200 to 250 bicycles at its crowded Sunday market and is bracing for up to 350 bikes this summer. The city funds the valet service.
Planners hope that these service-oriented parking centers will encourage residents to use their bikes to do errands and commute to work.
On Sunday on Santa Monica's Main Street, trusting shoppers were handing over their sleek racing bikes and rusty beach cruisers to attendants who by noon had filled spaces designed for seven cars with more than 70 bicycles. Although the service is free, most people left tips of $1, $3 and more.
Kristin Mongiello, 35, of Santa Monica sped up to the valet table, her bike pulling her son, Riley Egan, 5, who was behind her on an attached wheeled contraption called a "Trail-a-bike."
They were rushing to a super-hero themed birthday party, and Egan was dressed in a blue and gold hero costume. On the way, they needed a few things from the farmers market, where she has become a regular valet parker.
"Parking here is dreadful," Mongiello said, "and we've had two bikes stolen." She and others said they felt more secure using the free parking service launched by the city last year to ease parking congestion at the Sunday market.
Some owners initially were wary of leaving their bikes guarded by strangers.
"I actually came and scoped it out, looked at the people who were taking care of it," said Jason Puerto, 35, of Santa Monica. He felt so comfortable with the valet service that he left his $1,700 Felt S22 with the attendants for the first time Sunday.
As often happens with good intentions, success has come with a cost. The Santa Monica project has cut severely into the income of a white-bearded man known only as Johnnie who started watching over bikes and dogs two years ago at the market's Main Street entrance.
"I'm the one who started this business. They come here and just put up their thing," said Johnnie, who said he once had as many as 40 cyclists as customers. On Sunday, he was guarding two bikes and four dogs and said he was falling behind on his rent. "But I'm not worried. God will bless me," he said.
