Well, this piece is actually from the paper's weekend edition... in which reporter Anne Kadet bought a 24-hour access pass... She wasn't a big fan:
The trip home was worse. Upon docking in the East Village to avoid overtime charges, I discovered the station's kiosk screen was cracked; it wouldn't give me another bike. The station at First Avenue and Third was down. The kiosk at Houston and Allen wouldn't read my card.
That's when it started pouring. I cursed the system: "I hate Citi Bike! I hate Citi Bike! I hate Citi Bike!"
The nice lady who answered the Citi Bike hotline was sympathetic, but couldn't direct me to a functional station. Finally, after trying one last kiosk, I gave up and took the F train home.
I hate to say it, but if Citi Bike were NASA, there'd be a lot of dead astronauts. Of the 10 trips I took, eight had significant snafus. Yes, the system's launch was initially delayed due to software issues; perhaps they should have delayed a bit longer.
The whole article is here ... though you may need a subscription to access it... A few weeks back, Wall Street Journal editorial board member Dorothy Rabinowitz ripped Mayor Bloomberg and the entire bike-share program. Ripped it good.
24 comments:
Not to nitpick, but we've killed at least 17 astronauts, which is more than the number of pedestrians who were killed by NYC cyclists over the same time period. But about the number of pedestrians who are killed by wayward NYC drivers per MONTH.
No one is suggesting Citibike be NASA. I think we should probably hold the two orgs to different standards.
Give it time, Brian.
Hey, so I like how Grieve added the Dorothy Rabinowitz link to this post. I found her statements to be hilarious and TRUE!
I'm sure loads of people will resume calling her a whack job in this comments section like they did the first time she was mentioned on the blog. Amazing.
I swear I heard CBS radio this morning say the MTA (tax payers) was going to pay for a bike share program in Greenpoint "due to the G train shutdown".
My friend has the Citi Bike pass and had issues the first three times she rode the bikes, but then I walked her to a kiosk in the East Village for her fourth ride, and she had no issues. So the key is to bring me with you to the kiosk as a good luck charm. ;)
You mean the WSJ and I actually agree on something? Yow!
It's shocking that bike share is mildly inconveniencing people, which is totally morally equivalent to installing faulty O-rings on a space shuttle rocket and causing a bunch of astronauts to slip the surly bonds of Earth and begrime the face of God with charred astronaut bits. The People have a perfectly reasonable expectation that this program that they're paying bupkus for should run flawlessly, just like the subway trains and buses do
Of course, the city and CitiBike knew that there were going to be major software issues due to the messy divorce of the vendor and the software company that did all those other cities. But they had to rush it through before the end of Bloomberg's term because there's no way it would have gone forward under another mayor. So there will be a shit-ton of glitches. For awhile, probably. But it's here to stay. Sorry, haters.
Not sure where you are getting your NYC bicycle death figures from but they are completely wrong.
What is particularly amazing to me is this kneejerk rush to draw party lines when it comes to bikeshare and label all opponents nazis. The fact remains that the software is dysfunctional, the hardware is being vandalized (as predicted) and the increase in helmetless, scofflawing riders creates a reckless disregard for pedestrian safety.
You can be "pro-bike" until the cows come home, but there is one thing you cannot deny. Reality.
There were three bicycle crash deaths in 2011 ALONE.
http://www.nyc.gov/html/dot/downloads/pdf/bicycle-crash-data-report-2011.pdf
12 died in the first six months of 2012 ALONE. That's 15 already. I'd guess there were more than three killed in the last 50 years.
http://www.streetsblog.org/2012/08/03/nypd-7371-pedestrians-and-cyclists-injured-79-killed-through-june-2012/
People, Brian is referring not to cyclists killed by cars (which is what some of you are citing), but PEDESTRIANS killed by cyclists (the number is ZERO in the last few years).
So who cares about the multitudes of dead cyclists, the numbers of which will go parabolic with this program due to an avalanche of inexperienced riders, thus opening the City to further liability in that it RUNS this program, not Citi. Let alone the millions that will be spent on emergency medical services to attend to injured cyclists, pedestrians and motorists that will surely develop due to the numbers of such inexperienced, helmetless cyclists.
But hey, the program works in Eau Claire Wisconsin!
Anon 2:41: the problem is the awful, litigious mentality in the US, not the bike share. People keep suing the MTA after they drunkenly fall or get pushed onto tracks, and the train doesn't manage to stop on time. Should we give up the subway because of these merit-less, yet usually settled at our expense, lawsuits?
1238pm:
Reality is a matter of perception and yours is warped - lots of positive things about bikeshare you chose to ignore.
The Top 10 Totally Positive Things About The CitiBike Share Program That Everyone Is Ignoring:
1) Now when the sorority girl bar hoppers yelling their WooHoos cruise through the Village on their CitiBikes, you only have to listen to them yelling for a few seconds as they speed on by.
2) Fewer drunks throwing up on the busess and subways and falling down on the tracks.
3) By the time the frat boys from the Yupper East Side get down here, they are just too tired to be quite so loud and obnoxious.
4) More space in the real bike racks for the real cyclists.
5) Cleaner streets, since the docking stations turn out to be really great garbage collectors.
6) The docking stations also double as benches if you don't mind sitting on something that looks like a giant dildo.
7) All that extra tracking data flowing fron the CitiBike system into the NSA databases means those analysts a Booz Allen have that much less time to listen to everyone's phone sex calls.
8) Now if your food delivery guy gets a flat tire, he can just rent a CitiBike and the food gets delivered hot and on time
9) Taxi drivers now have more targets to aim at as they try to sideswipe all the additional amateur cyclists, meaning there is that much less of a chance they will try to sideswipe you.
10) Now the elderly pedestrians who just love to yell at cyclists and wave their canes at you can just yell at everyone else.
here's five without the dripping sarcasm
fun
convenient
simple to use
green
healthy
"OMG THERE WILL BE DEAD CYCLISTS EVERWHERE OH TEH HUMANITY," etc. Sorry haters. Hasn't happened. Like one person on a CitiBike has been hit by a car. There will be more, yes, but the predicted slaughter of CitiBike-riding hayseeds has not materialized. Meanwhile, the added bikes are slowing motorists down and in so doing making getting around safer for everyone
You forgot to elaborate on your nice little list, so here we go, with the dripping sarcasm, kleenex not included:
Fun: Owning your own bike is no fun. But paying someone else more than $1000 over a 10 year period to ride a $250 bike sure is. And it sure beats sniffing bath salts in your parent's basement.
Convenient: It's really convenient, Unless you consider having to walk an extra quarter to half mile per trip to rent and return your bike inconvenient, this is the most convenient program since the now defunct underwear rental program, which was closed down due to complaints about too many skid marks.
Simple to use: Any simpleton with a credit card and zero riding skills can use them, and it's so much easier than actually owning a bike which actually (The Horror!) requires you to buy your own bike lock.
Green: Technically the bikes are blue, but maybe that's getting too picky?
Healthy: Yes, now you can breathe the very same bus fumes and car exhaust as NYC's infamous kamikaze bike messengers, who have a shorter lifespan than the average house pet.
most folks on here are probably too young to remember pay telephones. these things were constantly vandalized, but the equipment was owned by Bell not the City as it is here.
@Anon
What are you talking about? I pay my cell phone bill every month. Its never been vandalized though, and I have AT&T, not Verizon.
Citi Bike is great and very popular.
Let them hate all they want. It's an efficient way to get around. The kinks are getting worked out as time passes and it's honestly made drivers much more alert about bikes and pedestrians. Been making my life more convenient.
To the cost difference between owning your own bike and renting....the cost to maintain a bike in the city is like one stolen wheel ($65-125)or variously parts a year at least, plus 5-6 Flats ($90), plus some replacement or other, derailer etc (45$)...so the rental bikes really pay for themselves....
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