Pedicabs Pick Up Speed in Southern California

"Pedicabs will hit the streets of Santa Monica this summer, and city officials hope the service will offer people on bustling Main Street a way to get around without their cars," report Matt Stevens and Marisa Gerber. "Santa Monica will join San Diego, San Francisco, Santa Barbara, Huntington Beach and Long Beach, where the human-powered taxis already roam the streets."

"Los Angeles has long resisted pedicabs, but there are signs the resistance is waning," they add. "Los Angeles Department of Transportation spokesman Jonathan Hui said the agency is 'studying the breadth of a pedicab regulatory system' in order to help establish a system of its own."

"Transportation experts say Santa Monica's approval of bicycle taxis points to a larger trend in the Southland — a logical next step and new frontier for a region long branded by its freeway system."

"There's been a cultural shift toward non-motorized or green transportation in general," said Michael Smart, a researcher at the Institute of Transportation Studies at UCLA. "In the past six to seven years there's been a real sea change."