Pasadena’s participation in Metro’s bike share program might end sooner than anticipated. The 31-station system that went into operation last July only has enough funding to continue until October, according to a report from the city’s transportation department.

The new report, assembled by Pasadena’s Department of Transportation and presented this week to the city council’s Municipal Services Committee, concludes that “it is unlikely that continued support for the bike share system in Pasadena can be recommended as fiscally prudent” after October of 2018. In order to keep it running past then, the city will need to allocate more money for the system.

Pasadena spends about $120,000 each month operating and maintaining the bike share system, which was launched as a two-year pilot last summer.

But whether or not Pasadena officials will continue to support Metro’s bike share in their city is an open question.

“We don’t have as much funding available as the City of Los Angeles does, obviously because we’re much much smaller,” Fred Dock, director of Pasadena’s transportation department, told Curbed. “We’re just trying to balance our local needs and our local resources against the utility of the regional [Metro] system. The question is what level of support are we looking at.”

The report describes how the Pasadena installment of Metro Bike isn’t meeting the revenue and ridership expectations officials were presented when they first signed off on the program in late 2016. Back then, Metro emphasized that operation costs could be offset by a systemwide sponsorship (like how Citibank sponsors New York’s Citi Bike system) and bike station panel advertising, as well as fares from riders.

But none of those revenue streams have emerged. Metro has yet to secure a systemwide sponsor, bike station advertising has not yet been implemented, and ridership is so low that Pasadena’s farebox recovery rate—the costs that can be covered by user fares—is just 8 percent.

In December of 2017, the Pasadena part of Metro’s bike share system accrued just 0.21 rides per bike per day, among the lowest rate among the bike share areas that also include Downtown, Venice, and Port of LA.

Compared to other systems around the country, Metro’s bike share system is a low performer. According to a Metro report released last month, Metro Bike nets about 0.7 riders per bicycle per day, roughly the same as Oklahoma City’s bike share system. Bikes in Washington D.C. and New York’s bike share systems, by contrast, respectively see up to 4.5 and 6 rides per day, depending on the season.

Advocates say crucial bicycle infrastructure needed for people to feel safe while riding is broadly absent in many cities across Southern California, including Pasadena.

Greg Gunther, who serves on the board of the Pasadena Playhouse District Association and is passionate about lessening car dependency in Southern California, views the bike share question as a chicken-and-egg situation.

“Putting out the bike share and populating the street these very visible lime green bicycles sparks increased usage. But if we had better infrastructure, more people would ride. They feed on each other,” Gunther told Curbed. “I’m a firm believer that the engineering solution should come first, and it’s a shame that, as a region, we’re just not there yet.”

Gunther is happy to see the bike share bikes raising the profile of cycling, but he ultimately worries that, without high quality bicycle infrastructure, they’re doomed to little use.

“We have a great network of bike lanes on paper, but they’re not fully formed yet,” said Gunther. “There are a lot of people who are very interested in riding, but when they take the taste test, they come away feeling ‘it’s just too dangerous for me.’”

Building better bicycle infrastructure, of course, is very challenging for Southern California cities because it often means reallocating street space from cars to bicycles, which has triggered intense backlash in some communities. Pasadena, for example, is currently weighing a proposition to remove vehicle travel lanes from a section of Orange Grove Boulevard north of the 210 freeway in order to add a center-left-turn lane and a bicycle lane.

Whatever the case for Pasadena, all signs indicate that Metro will continue to expand its bike share system throughout Los Angeles County. At a Wednesday meeting of the agency’s planning committee, Metro directors signed off on environmental documents related to Phase 3 and Phase 4 of bike share, which would ultimately blanket much of Central Los Angeles with bikes.

“I know our initial intent was just to get people to think about [riding] it, period.” said Supervisor Hilda Solis at the Wednesday meeting. “In some places... it hasn’t totally connected yet. So, I’m still interested in learning more about the worthiness of continuing.”