GoMonrovia Prices May Go Up (With Exceptions) Again; Rules for Sidewalk Vendors

Growth of Lyft rides in Monrovia.

At its next meeting (agenda: https://goo.gl/Y5V6Gs)the Monrovia City Council will consider ...

 ~ A price increase and other modifications for GoMonrovia. Why? Because the insanely successful Lyft partnership that gives residents cheap rides around town is flat running out of money.

The city wants to maintain $.50 shared rides to or from Old Town and to and from the Gold Line Station, but other shared rides would increase from 50 cents to a dollar, and solo rides would increase from $3 to $3.50.

Also, the city will seek to be completely reimbursed by LA County and Bradbury for their participation in the program, or seek to scale back services to them. And, it will restructure the Dial-A-Ride program so it is ONLY for handicapped riders.

The problem is the program's estimated annual cost is $2.7 million and the city only has $1.2 million per year to spend on it. These changes, the staff report says, "are estimated to improve the GoMonrovia financial position by around $1.5 million, which would still leave an annualized funding gap of around $600,000."

Since that's still short, the city will monitor the program, reevaluate after this coming June, and possibly make additional adjustments.

Details: https://goo.gl/XLQjtC

~ What to do in response to California's Safe Sidewalk Vending Act, which allows sidewalk vendors (we're not talking food trucks here), whether cities like it or not.

To address this Monrovia has come up with these proposed regulations:

• Restrict vending near farmers' market, special events, or schools during school hours.
• No vending in Canyon Park, the Hillside Wilderness Preserve, and city parking lots.
• No stationary sidewalk vendors in areas zoned exclusively residential.
• Restrict operation to to normal business hours for the area.
• Require proper trash disposal.
• Require sidewalk vendors meet accessibility requirements.
• Require vendors have a County Department of Health permit (for food vendors), have a California seller's permit, liability insurance, and a city business license.

Details: https://goo.gl/dFRZZ3

- Brad Haugaard