Long Beach is looking into a free bike registration system that would link to the Long Beach Police Department in effort to make it easier to track and recover stolen bikes.

Bike theft is a known problem throughout Long Beach, but several factors, including under-reporting by victims and how police categorize these incidents, make it a difficult to maintain data that accurately reflects the magnitude of the problem.

Further, for those that do report bike theft to police, officers request a photo of the bike and its serial number in order to return it if recovered.

To try to crack down on the problem, the City Council has asked staff to research what it would take to create an app-based, voluntary bike registry for Long Beach residents.

Residents can now pay a fee to log their bike with the National Bike Registry database, but Long Beach police do not have access to that data.

The idea was suggested by Councilwoman Suzie Price, who herself had her recently had her bike stolen.

In a newsletter sent to residents this week, she said it is time the city “address this persistent problem head on.”

“Making registration easy for individuals is essential,” she said on Tuesday. “If we are to claim we are a bike friendly city, we need to find ways to reduce bike theft citywide.”

A staff report on the feasibility of creating such a system is expected back before the council in the coming months.