You probably heard about the outbreak of "Shiti Bike" stickers around the city in the last 48 hours or so... EVG reader Brad212 spotted these on East Ninth Street and Avenue C yesterday morning ...
A "Shitibike" website launched on Sunday... where you can download your very own stickers... there's also the month-old Shiti bike Facebook page that announces it is "Reclaiming NYC streets from corporate appropriation of Bike culture."
Meanwhile, a reader pointed us to this info graphic at Mayor Bloomberg's website from last week ... which provides a statistical report card of Citi Bike's first month of operation...
31 comments:
"Corporate appropriation of bike culture." ... Bike culture? Really? Corporate appropriate of public space, maybe, but "bike culture" seems a little contrived.
I'm not a fan of the Citi name on the bikes but I like the program. To point out the obvious....those large black cyclinders are security cameras.
Those guys did well w the stickers. This is a better protest than smearing shit on the bikes etc. All the data so far seem to point to citibikes being a success. Im kind of grossed out by them, but thats my problem. I have my own, sterile bike anyway. There are def a lot of pretty clueless riders out there on these bikes, but so far there seem to be very few incidents.
This is so immature. The bikes are a positive thing, and better a corporation than our tax dollars go to funding it. Defacing the bikes is only going to make the funding be used more wastefully, sending workers to clean up the bikes and peel off the stickers, rather than being able to focus on malfunctioning stations, maintaining the app and repairing bikes. If I had to pick a way to allocate Citi's money, something that has the potential to benefit all of us, like this bike share program, would certainly be a nice start. Your stupid stickers are not going to bring down Citi, so maybe we should just be happy with what good they are TRYING to do for the community?
I still can't help but think 'loser' whenever I see someone riding one of those things.
Stupid people, being stupid. The me-centric mentality at work.
This city provides so many amazing job opportunities- NOT
At least Shitti is his own boss
What July 9, 2013 at 10:31 AM said.
"corporate appropriation of Bike culture" equals "God, biking sucks now that the masses are doing it! It's not for getting from one place to another, it's for feeling superior to the non-biker! It's for specialized outfits and equipment and long descriptions of my custom setup! If you appreciated bike culture as much as we do you'd have your bikes with you all the time instead of needing to rent them!"
I remember how sad I felt when it became cool to like Doctor Who and it wasn't just my private special little thing anymore, so I can sympathize.
Ha..ha..ha..hilarious! Love it!
If they're going to charge money for the bikes, then people shouldn't also be expected to ride around the city working as Citibank's personal advertisers. Either take the logos off and charge your user fee or keep your 5 logos on each bike and make them free for riders (who will be advertising for you just by riding around). Personally I'd say remove them - the logos are why people look like such dorks on them.
I detest these things as much as the next guy, but, stickers? really?
Well, I certainly expected the creatives of NYC to do a number on the visuals, sucky as they are. Citibike was stupid to go so corporate. I don't condone destroying other peoples property, not how I was raised. And enjoy your community service scraping them off when they catch you.
What if CitiBank just changed its name to ShitiBank? In a single stroke of marketing genius that would both sabotage the evil little sticker campaign and finally give this too-big-to-fail banking behemoth the brand name it really deserves. Plus it's what their customers already call it anyway. The Shiti Never Sleeps, ShitiBank.
Some of us own cars idiot. More shiti bikes equals less parking for the rest of us who need cars to drive our children and elderly parents around. Indifferent moron
Precious Bike Culture! As if Bianchi, Specialized, Trek, Schwinn, etc aren't big companies or something.
At last - something both the bike-share riders and the bike-share haters can support!
Saw a CitiBike rider on the FDR service road the other day... Rooting for Darwinism to chart its course.
Hey "some of us own cars idiot" - You can't coexist with bicycles? You sound very selfish.
As to Citibank - be nice if they had realized beforehand how obnoxious it was to plaster there name all over the bikes - but they are deservedly reaping a fair amount of negative press for it and opening themselves up to this kind of harmless vandalism. Serves them right.
Personally, I don't mind the blue color, but to each his own.
I officially hate both sides of this lousy controversy now. What a bum deal it is living in the EV 2013. All the stuff I moved here for is gone. Now its all rental bikes and 7-11's and shitty landlords, the only issues that people seem to care about.
Hey Moronymous,
You know who you are.
Did you really just say it was better a corporation pay for this bike sharing program this than our tax dollars?
Citibank was given $100,000,000,000 in tax-funded bailout money. That's more than I made all last year!
$41,000,000 was then given to fund sponsorship of this bike-sharing program. That's more than the number of hot dogs Joey Chestnut can eat in an hour!
In other news, 2+2=4 and other math you can't comprehend.
Have a great day!
Mr Chittle:
I'm no defender of big banks and believe the government should break up any that are "too big to fail" - too bad the Big Banks along with the NRA control the Republican party. With that said, you are making up stuff about the bail out for Citibank:
As AP explained:
By Martin Crutsinger, AP Economics Writer 12/8/10
WASHINGTON — After all is said and done, taxpayers will make a $12 billion profit on the government's $45 billion bailout of Citigroup.
The Treasury Department said late Monday that it had struck a deal to sell its remaining holdings in Citigroup (C) common stock, about 2.4 billion shares. With the proceeds of the sale, priced at $4.35 a share, the government will have realized $57 billion on its bailout package for the big bank.
"By selling all the remaining Citigroup shares today, we had an opportunity to lock in substantial profits for the taxpayer and avoid future risk," said Tim Massad, the Treasury official who heads up the bailout program.
Jeez... if anybody has a problem with usury and what it does to civilization, please find a way to educate others. Defacing bicycles just tells people that you are a loser.
My husband (66) is disabled -- he cannot feel his feet, has problems keeping his balance and walking. He can, however, ride a bike. The bike sharing thingy means he is no longer dependend on me to carry his bicycle up and down the stairs.
Myself, I am just happy we can go out together without him feeling he is holding me back, and that he is getting more exersize. Which means I might have a few more years with him.
Citibikes = people riding the wrong direction, less people wearing helmets, and less parking. If you want to ride a bike in the city just get a bike and a chain and a lock. It's not hard.
12:00,
You do realize that car parking spots are a private appropriation of public space, and an inefficient one at that, right?
And that is taking into account that every person in the EV that has a car seems to need it to take their sick grandparents to the doctor in Long Island. So sad that there are so many sick grandparents.
Also, when did people start to care about strangers wearing helmets? Are you angered when you see people not wearing seat belts?
You do realize that there were parking spots and now there aren't right? What would you like between the street and stores/residences? A park? Nah you're right, a corporate bike rack with ugly bikes is the way to go. And yes I care about people's safety because the people riding these bikes don't seem to be avid bike riders. It's NYC ya big sil
One parking space serves one person. Ten bike docks can fit in that space and serves not just ten people, but ANYBODY that is using the bike share.
There isn't room for 10 bikes in one parking space. And even if there was it still only serves "ten" at a time. This notion that it serves anybody using the bike share is invalid. It serves the number of slots.
4:44,
I don't know if you were the one making the 'private appropiation of public space' argument, but my post was an attempt to showcase the ridiculousness of that argument because car parking IS THE SAME THING. A small number of privileged car owners get to use public space. I'm pointing out that the CITIBikes are a more efficient use of public space.
But finding a spot for your car is of the utmost importance to the public good.
The parking meters are run by the City and the revenues go to the City. The bike rentals are privately managed. Parking spaces are managed to turn over frequently (unless you are in front of the David Schwimmer house which has privatized its parking space for a couple years now) and not just one person is in the car always, there are these things called 'families' which are groups of related people who will all arrive in the same car. Anyone with cash in hand can park. You must have a govt approved credit/debit card to use the bike rentals. Certainly it is in the public good to park cars as soon as possible and not have them driving around in circles wasting resources and taking up road space.
Exactly. And parking tickets are 115.00 a pop.
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