NYC DOT and NYC Bicycle Share are happy to announce that Citi is the official sponsor of the NYC Bike Share system. Private sponsorship, combined with user fees, means that no taxpayer dollars will be used to operate the system in NYC.
Citi Bike is a revolutionary new way for you to get around New York City, scheduled to launch summer 2012. Bike sharing expands your transportation options; it empowers you to go your own way.
Citi Bike is a self-service system that provides members with easy access to a network of thousands of bicycles. Pick up a bike close to home or work, ride, then return it to any of the hundreds of stations to be located throughout the city.
Citi Bike will consist of 600 stations, 10,000 bikes in Manhattan and Brooklyn. Visit CitiBike to learn more about system pricing, membership, upcoming events and system launch.
Here’s one of the first shots of the bikes. We can’t wait to see them action on New York’s streets!
Hmm.
No word yet on where some of the 600 share locations will be ... there will, of course, be several bike stations around the East Village...
Last October, we got a sneak preview when the Great New York City Bike Share Tour made a stop on Avenue A along Tompkins Square Park...
I liked the idea a little more when the bikes didn't look like an ATM on wheels. Will you take a CitiBank bike for a cruise? Oh, and here's the price list...
23 comments:
I like it! Nice bike. They'll all get stolen most likely though.
The problem is there's going to be 10 times the amount of accidents...
How will they get stolen? They will be locked to an apparatus monitored by camera, unless someone decides to bring and use their own lock in between docking. Additionally, the bikes have little street value: they are big, heavy, ugly, recognizable, and trackable.
DC isn't exactly a crime-free haven, yet they're managing just fine.
I'd like someone those advertisements to be replaced by poetry instead, much like in Montreal
*Let's try this again...
I'd like someone to replace those advertisements with poetry instead, much like in Montreal.
[stupid uneditable comments, and jumbled stream of consciousness]
I'm not going to pretend I know about the viability of this thing, but more bikes usually seems like a good idea. The remark in the press release about bikes expanding one's transportation options and empowerment, etc is spot on. I have been riding my cycle for just over a year now and I wonder how I ever got by without it. I lament all the money and time I pissed away on riding (and waiting) on the subways and MTA retard buses. All you walkers who bellyache about dangerous, rude cyclists, I feel for you and everything and I hate them too, but also you really ought to do yourselves a favor and try getting in the saddle, see how liberating it is, see how much faster you can get around, how you can expand your sphere of activity, see more of the city, get errands done quicker. If you live below 23rd and are still walking everywhere, you're missing out.
what a rip
Can we just call NYC Toronto and get it over with already?
The bikes here in Montreal also have advertising messages on them, and everyone hates them, but it lowers the cost of rental.
EXCITING!
@Glamma - $95/yr and then free rides up to 30 minutes is a rip? This makes a lot of sense if you are going to use the bikes to run errands. You take out the bike, drop it off at another location and do what you need to do and get back on another bike and go home. It works out to $0.26 a day.
If I understand this right, then; $10 for 30 minutes is absolutely "a rip".
Looks like they're going with the cell phone service type model (biggest rip of anything that has ever existed since indentured slavery). I'm sure 1 minute over the allotted 30 min., and you are dinged the additional $4.
I'll just take a cab... no wait... I'll just buy a bike for easy under $100 and call it a day. (or a year, as it might be)
So Anon, you're saying walk from home to a bike coral, find a coral near your destination and ride to it, walk to your destination, do your errand, walk back to the coral, ride to the original coral, and walk home? Sounds like fun. Otherwise if you rode straight to the destination, parked there, did your errand, and rode home you'll probably have to pay 4 bucks. And you can rent a car for a day cheaper than a bike? That sounds like a rip to me.
For an annual membership the ride times are increased.
0 - 44:59 min FREE
44:59 - 59:59 min $4.00
This is a pretty good deal.
http://citibikenyc.com/pricing
Good luck with a $100 bike. You're going to need to get a $100 chain and lock as well.
Good idea....but they are ugly as sin.
Also, as bicycle ridership increases, it is more and more crucial that traffic laws are enforced against cyclists. That is, no red-light running, no riding on the sidewalks, etc.'
BIkes replacing cars is good; bikes as a hazard to pedestrians is not.
- East Villager
yeah ive only ridden these as a tourist in other cities. so thats what we can expect. way more foreigners who dont know where theyre going on bikes. PLUS, no basket (except the tiny one on front) for errands. and no helmet option.
plus, they are heavy as sh** and i think kind of difficult to ride because of it.
i walk around a lot
who rents a bike for a year?
also, what if it gets stolen?
i still think it's a rip, and i protest this on the involvement of citibank alone.
Look at how we have subsidized them, much to the demise of the city (not to mention the ECONOMY).
We spend god knows how much on crap like CitiField (an entirely unneccesary cosmetic pet project) while slashing every social spending program in existence??
And where does the Citifield profit go? Certainly not back to any social programs or anything to benefit residents.
This is just more yuppie sh*t to subsidize the police state, as someone so aptly commented the other day.
I am all for bike share programs and greening the city (and I am a driver). But this is just a shameless cash grab, opportunizing on the fact that we as a city are ripely overdue for such a program.
I guess that's just how it goes these days... but I still refuse to like it or participate in it.
"who rents a bike for a year?
also, what if it gets stolen?"
You clearly have no idea how this program works.
Tourists for sure! Saw in Paris a similar system, but problem seemed to be flow of bikes to tourist locations and not back to origin. People scrambling and stressing, trying to find empty slots to return 'em before getting charged extra. I agree w/ "East Villager" that more bikes/less cars is good but bikers should expect traffic enforcement (spotty as it is) to shift in their direction...
-another (log-time) E.Villager
This is potentially good for a certain segment of people. Those of us on upper floor walk ups, or incredibly tiny apartments, or both, have to leave our bikes on the street, which doesn't last long unless you have a really really really really crappy bike, which I do, but it's so crappy I hate to ride it. And the other good thing would not to have to lug around the giant chain, which, for an old person like me, who is also riding a children's one speed bike, is not exactly an incentive to use it under most circumstances.
I wonder if people could share a membership. If I could find someone with a complete opposite schedule, or someone who does things like joins the gym but never goes, it might work out nicely.
dumb idea. these people will never undestand that this is not copenhagen, not amsterdam. this is a large american city not some tiny little insular eurpoean city. the prices are too high and what if the echange spot is already full of bikes? what then? This is yet another bad idea from government bureaucrats.
Now that I took the time to read about this program it starts to make sense. The fees are overage fees, they are to discourage ppl from using the bikes for long rides. As long as your trip is under 30min you don't incur any extra fees. I think its cheap enough to lure a good number of ppl who don't want the hassle of owning a bike but who wouldn't mind at least to cut down their commute time even if they don't ride all the way to work or wherever i.e. its a pretty long slog from say, Avenue C to the nearest subway. I rather ride my own bike but I can see how access to a network of bikes all around the city for under $100/yr would be appealing to some. Owning your own bike probably costs you around that much in parts and maintenance anyways.
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