A thousand communal bicycles would be available for use in San Francisco and along the Peninsula in what Bay Area transportation officials are trumpeting as the nation's first regional bike-sharing program.

The $7.9 million pilot project would provide bikes in San Francisco and along the Caltrain corridor in San Jose, Palo Alto, Mountain View and Redwood City for use by registered subscribers, much like car-sharing programs.

The goal is to get people out of their cars, particularly drivers who live and work within a mile or so of major transit hubs who would use the bikes for short trips.

"Bike sharing is an innovative way to improve our community's health and air quality by replacing car trips with zero-emission bikes," said Kristine Roselius, a spokeswoman with the Bay Area Air Quality Management District, which would oversee the pilot project that would run a year or two.

The Metropolitan Transportation Commission, a regional funding and planning agency, is expected to approve the bulk of funding today.

Nuts and bolts

Here's how it would work: Participants would sign up and pay a membership fee for a bike-share account, either online or in person at a station. Once registered, they could check out a bike and ride it to any station within the network.

Members would unlock the bikes electronically with a credit card or prepaid smart card.

Fees would be based on how long the bike is checked out. There would be no charge for short trips of a half hour or less.

Accommodations would be made for tourists and others who might want to use the bikes for only a day or two.

Specific prices have yet to be set, but probably would fall somewhere between the cost of riding transit and taking a taxi, said Timothy Papandreou, deputy director of planning for the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency, a partner in the experiment.

Acknowledging the problems of theft and vandalism experienced by other bike-sharing programs, the bikes in the Bay Area program would be outfitted with components to make them more difficult to steal and tamper with, and be equipped with GPS units and radio frequency identification tags to track their locations.

Paris, London, Barcelona, Taipei, Chicago, Denver, Washington and dozens of other cities around the world have bike-sharing programs.

Both San Francisco and the Santa Clara Valley Transportation Authority have plans for a bike-share program, but neither has started their program. Now the idea is moving forward with a regional approach.

Funding shares

The Metropolitan Transportation Commission will vote on allocating $4.3 million. The air quality district has agreed to kick in $1.4 million, and local governments and transportation agencies in San Francisco, San Mateo and Santa Clara counties will pick up the remainder of the tab. Once the funding is cemented, the partner agencies will pick a vendor or vendors to supply the bikes, set up the stations and operate the program. The first bikes are expected to hit the streets within 12 to 18 months, with the program fully operational within two years, Roselius said. Planners hope to expand the program to nearly 13,000 bikes.

But initially, San Francisco would get 500 bikes, dispersed at 50 stations around Market Street between the Financial District and the Civic Center, with additional clusters around the Transbay Terminal in the South of Market area and the Caltrain Station in China Basin.

A greener approach

An additional 400 bikes would be available in Santa Clara County around San Jose Diridon, Mountain View and Palo Alto Caltrain stations, which are near major universities, downtown commercial corridors, business parks and residential complexes. San Mateo County would get 100 bikes that could be picked up and dropped off at the Redwood City Caltrain station and in the city's downtown core, a test area that has more 1,200 businesses and 1,700 residences.

"Regional bike sharing is the final spoke in the wheel of a true transit-first region," said San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom.

Bike advocates laud the impending arrival of a regional bike-share program that they anticipate will lure more people out of their cars.

"This is going to be another important transportation link in the Bay Area," said Corinne Winter, executive director of the Silicon Valley Bicycle Coalition.

But, she and other advocates, including her counterpart in San Francisco, said that for a bike-share program to be truly successful, there need to be more dedicated bike lanes to make the roads safer for cyclists.