Friday, May 24, 2013

And now, more complaints about Citi Bikes docking stations



EVG reader Mark White spotted a resident hanging these clips on the docking station on East 13th Street at Avenue A this morning...



... it's a photocopied article from the Post about workers removing a bike station on West 13th Street...

As for the resident with the flyers... Per Mark: "She was very upset and very concerned for safety, and let's just say she wasn't too pleased with Bloomberg. She want down the block taping them to buildings. Told me to call 311."

Now's a good time to repost the following from CB3 regarding complaints about Citi Bikes:

Bike Share will launch May 27. Issues that must be dealt with immediately, such as a blocked driveway or loading zone, should be emailed to the community board office (info@cb3manhattan.org) and we will work with DOT to have these sites inspected immediately.

There are other concerns regarding placement of installations or size of installations, or the number of installations in close proximity to each other. We are asking people to wait until bike share is in operation for a month to see what works and what doesn’t. What installations are not being used to capacity? What installations do not accommodate the number of bikes needed?

The Community Board 3 Transportation Committee will meet on Tuesday, July 16 to hear concerns. DOT will attend the meeting to note these concerns and address or inspect and follow up. Please check the CB 3 website for the meeting location or sign up to receive monthly agendas (join cb 3’s mail list on website).

Anyway, at least it wasn't dog poop.

20 comments:

Fashion By He said...

anyone against this bike share program is probably a little narrow minded...of course there will be issues in the beginning as thing sort themselves out...but we are only of the new large cities in the world without a bike share program...if it works well for them, and it does...pretty sure nyc can handle it

AlexEatsBeans said...

Fashion By He, I think that's a foolish. Generalizing an entire opinion as narrow minded is in and of itself a contradiction. The bike share program is completely designed, operated, and imposed upon us by the office of the mayor. These are the tax dollars of every new yorker at work for a program that only benefits very few. Furthermore because the bikes do not come with helmets it is just inviting injury. While the concept of the program is enticing, the unilateral imposing of it by a mayor who believes whatever he thinks is automatically right is confounding.

Anonymous said...

narrowmindedness....hmm, let's see - the people who have expressed an open mind about the introduction of a new mass transportation method have been called the following (that I've read) in this blog's comments: yuppies, transients, corporate tools/trolls, out-of-towners, not residents, kool-aid drinkers, cupcake eaters and teabaggers.

Anonymous said...

Yeah the troll/shill accusation is way out of bounds. Go outside. Talk to your neighbors. There are plenty of actual EV people who are not only ok with it but actually looking forward to a new mode of transportation.

Anonymous said...

AlexEatsBeans: 1.) Nope, it's not taxpayer-funded, Citibank is funding it in exchange for the advertising that a bazillion blue bikes will provide; 2.) Please. Millions of us will use this program, just as they do in Paris and London and many other great cities; 3.) Yeah, helmet requirements have sunk bike share programs elsewhere because most people will not carry around helmets with them everywhere all the time, so the answer is to make biking hella safer.

Oh, and this whole "Bloomberg is ramming this down our throats" trope is inane. Look, Bloomberg might be a patrician dick who does, in fact, like to impose nanny state stuff on the help, but DOT did not plot all this out in secret. There were public hearings galore. There was press coverage galore. And anybody who didn't complain about the bike fascism then is SOL now, 'cause it's here, and huzzah for that!

Anonymous said...

I really love the whole "non-native New Yorker" baiting thing. So... Volkisch. And "transients?" Doesn't it just smack of "Rootless cosmopolitans?"

Anonymous said...

Is it "narrow minded" to be skeptical about any yutz without a helmet being able to start riding through automobile infested streets and pedestrian infested sidewalks? It's bad enough with the bicycle scofflaws we have already who think because they're on a bike they're somehow more important than everyone.

Once heads started getting crushed by delivery trucks hitting these things and the city takes on huge lawsuits, we'll discover who the "narrow minded" ones were.

Anonymous said...

But any yutz can get behind the wheel of a two-ton sedan and slalom down Avenue B at 40mph when school's letting out. And this is all well and good because it is The Natural Order of Things and just how gritty authentical New Yawk has ever been (well, since Eisenhower and Robert Moses' days, anyway) and ever shall be until the transients and Corn People and whatnot come and poop all over it with their stupid namby-pamby bicycles

Anonymous said...

If anything the no-helmet issue is probably better in practice for pedestrians because riders without helmets tend to ride slower with more caution. In any case, the only person possibly affected by not wearing a helmet is that person. Besides that, collisions and casualties seem to be exactly what some of you ghouls wish for anyways, so why the whining about no helmets all of a sudden.

Anonymous said...

Well, "that person" just got exponentially blown up into "any yutz who uses a Citi Bikeshare" because no helmets are provided. So multiply the recklessness of "that person" by a few thousand, every day.

Anonymous said...

Sounds like Anons 2:30 and 2:35 probably took a few too many headknocks on their bikes. Guys. use a helmet. it's showing.

Anonymous said...

my favorite take on the subject:

http://gothamist.com/2013/05/21/citi_bike_nearly_kills_man.php

Anonymous said...

Citibike ships a coupon for buying a bike helmet, redeemable at "any participating bike shop in NYC" when you sign up for membership, F.Y.I. I know, because I just got mine...

Anonymous said...

The FDNY made a statement that the bike docks do not pose a problem during emergencies. The Post is a terrible paper...

Anyway, I'm glad bike share finally made it to NYC. It's proven very useful in other cities I've visited.

Signed up for an annual, will hopefully eliminate all possible cab rides and most MTA rides unless inclimate weather.

Anonymous said...

I live on this block and I don't understand what the problem is. Personally, I'd rather have bikes parking on my street than some out-of-towner's SUV in for a Saturday night booze-binge. As far as I'm concerned the fewer parking spaces the better. Things change, get over it.

Anonymous said...

The person plastering the kiosk for the docking station with slanted antibike stories from the NY Post has now been identified by the NY post. Apparently she is protesting the loss of parking spaces. How lame!

Anonymous said...

The mayor and his henchmen have practically made this a socialist city, like Sweden, by imposing fire department, trash pickup, road repair, subway service...and not this! Now they want to impose BICYCLES on New York City!

Anonymous said...

How can FDNY make a statement that the bike racks have never caused any problems for the fire trucks when the bikes haven't even been installed yet? Oh I forgot, Bloomberg appointed that commissioner too.

Anonymous said...

Com. Sadik-Kon Job was just on NY 1. When asked how will the DOT measure the success of the program, the DOT Comissioner pronounced it already a success! Only under the great Bloomberg administration could a program be deemed a success before it's even begun.

JM said...

I wanted to hate it but alas, I can't. Once the bikes were put into their slots, the whole docking station across the street from us became a lot less ugly, somehow. And the logos are not as bad as I thought they'd be. Plus, the row of bikes is very neat. I'm a little OCD. I loved the 80s and early 90s here in the EV, but the Shitibikes are very neat. I like neat. I'll never use them or ride my bike in a city now full of people who have no idea how to ride in the city, but...jeez, they're so neat.