EVG reader Mark Smith spotted this today at the Citi Bike docking station on East Fifth Street at Avenue C … a new spring-look for the bikes? A rogue Citi Bike artist? What is going on…?
The Citi Bike blog has the answer:
For the first time, a handful of Citi Bikes will shed their iconic blue for a springtime hue. In celebration of Armory Arts Week, ten Citi Bikes will don artwork created by The Armory Show‘s 2014 commissioned artist, Xu Zhen. While eight of the special bikes circulate in the Citi Bike system, two will be on display at The Armory Show, at Pier 94, through Sunday, March 9.
23 comments:
Yawn
Who knew it was possible to make them uglier?
I suppose that's what they call "art".
read that bixi is bankrupt, citibikes may go up in price to survive..
Official word is it's some kind of camouflage for bikes in the racks near the fratbars.....
.....blends in with the puke.
In spite of its popularity somehow CitiBike is losing money. Probably lots of money. Like most NYC charter schools they don't even pay for the space they are occupying. It hass gotten so bad the City Council is holding hearings to decide on either an unplanned emergency rate hike or government subsidies for a program that supposedly was a model for privatization before the program goes broke.
How is this even possible?
Simple: they never had a valid business plan. You can make almost anything popular just by giving it away, just ask Facebook and WhatsApp. Cycling in New York has always been a great idea as all of us who already bike here already know. But you can't support and then expand a program that is losing money at the expense of MTA ridership.
Gving away cheap bike share rides at the expense of thousands of formerly free parking spaces, building bike lanes that make both cycling and walking more dangerous, and then not delivering on the program's main promises of affordability and availability is unacceptable. You'd have to be an out of touch billionaire mayor or an entitled bearded newbie metrosexual hipster to think this makes any sense.
But somehow it makes lots of sense to the entitled bearded newbie metrosexual hipsters that Spike Lee called out for their "let's wipeout this neighborhood and just do everything our way while screwing over the locals" lifestyle.
Generation Selfie wants it all, like their music and video they want it for free, and like they bikes they want it cheap and they want it now. And then they wonder why all the good jobs got moved to China and India.
As we pointed out months ago the CitiBike pricing scheme laws no sense; it cannibalizes MTA ridership and caters to people with incomes above $100k who don't even need the savings. And because of the credit card requirement it has almost no subscribers who are low income.
What you are left with is a program that caters to people making six figure incomes that is almost going bankrupt. If it were a publicly traded company it's stock would be going through the roof.
Now it's the entitled bearded newbie metrosexual hipsters who are getting screwed. In spite of promising not to do so, CitiBike removed many bikes from the streets during the winter months, enraging monthly subscribers (hello bait and switch) and did not remove snow from many docking stations that had bikes as they had promised, which resulted in bikes getting trapped in ice, fewer or no bikes available to ride, and then to save face they blamed the city for plowing them in. The same city that gave them all that public space for free.
When they raise the price to something more realistic, and then make it available in neighborhoods that aren't so wealthy or hyper-gentrifying, only then we will know if this program can really survive on its own.
Giovanni, so you still basically think that 1 car is a better use of public space than 10 bikes?
A $100/year program is only for people with six figure incomes? Who is the subway for then? Billionaires?
As for the MTA ridership issue, bikes and transit are not mutually exclusive. Bikes serve a lot of trips that transit doesnt do very well (crosstown, far from subway stations, etc), and they can REDUCE the costs of the MTA by reducing the demand for peak trips (peak in time, as in rush hour, and peak in space, as in Manhattan).
Who in Generation Netflix is getting music and video for free? This rant is without a point. Sorry somebody with a beard moved into your neighborhood.
Montreal seized the bike program rolled out by these crooks - no excuses for hiring a almost bankrupt firm- maybe NY will do the same and seize the program.
What Giovanni said. Brandon, get or ride a clue.
Giovanni, you're the only reason I bother to read comments anymore.
Admit it you beard-implant hookah-smoking hipsters, your little CitiBike program is a big ginormous money loser, and it has never worked as promised. Even when the hipsters are getting shafted by empty racks where you cant even rent a bike or full ones so you can't return them they still don't have a clue.
Now CitiBike, a program in financial distress with a major software vendor problem, is promoting the Armory Show which caters to millionaires and billionaires, and they still think this is for average people? What a nice way to show the program's real connection to average New Yorkers; the average income of Armory Show attendees is over $300k. What's next, the Cartier Edition CitiBike with diamond encrusted handlebars? The Debutante Ball Bike?? The Cronut Cycle??? The Trump Two Wheeler????
Read the research, CitiBikes are primarily being used by people making over $100k and tourists. Most average New Yorkers own their own bike or borrow one when they need a ride. And they don't want the liability problem that goes with It.
The bottom line is this is a money losing program that robbed thousands of free parking spaces from the public just so that rich hipsters can avoid the hassle of owning a real bike while costing the MTA millions in lost fares.
When they raise the program rates, the average income level will jump even higher. Maybe we should just wait for CitiLimo to roll out since that might actually make a profit, and not require a government subsidy.
If you feel that you need to have a car, move back to Ohio.
sorry but only a compete moron would wear flip-flops in the city when its only 60 degrees and ride a bike when its below freezing.
Anonymous: Youre confusing Bixi and Alta Bike share.
Bixi made the equipment for Citibike, Alta runs it. Bixi is (maybe for not much longer) based in Montreal, Alta is based in Portland, OR.
Giovanni -Your post is inherently illogical on many levels starting with your irrational hatred for people with facial hair who are younger than you
Take one look at this guy and tell me you don't agree with everything I just said.
Warning: You may never be able to Unsee This Hipster
Bloomberg was probably correct when he attributed money loss on the bike share program to start-up costs.
The big problem with bike share programs everywhere, not just in NYC, is accessing and/or returning bikes. The NYC program just started. Rebalancing the bikes in the system is a challenge, but it's not insurmountable. Expanding the program alone could help reset the balance naturally so it's not just people commuting to and from Midtown. Also, as time goes on they'll have hard tracking data on usage so they'll have statistics on when a bike's taken from a particular location and where it's going.
Give the program a minute to get going and adjust already.
Giovanni - having now seen the picture, i understand your hipster comments. Still not sure it translates to Citibike unless you assume only hipsters use Citibikes.
I love how Giovanni's long, well-reasoned and thoughtful posts are invariably blown off by numerous Anonymi who dismiss him in a couple of sentences, one of which is always "If you don't like it move to...". Pathetic. (Altho seriously, Giovanni, a little more warning before I opened that pic would have been nice; my eyes are still nauseous!)
I'm not sure that an argument that CitiBike caters to those over $100K and is taking away parking spaces is a good argument. Let's get real here, I think less than 20% of actual residents of Manhattan own cars and I'm pretty sure most that do own cars are making over $100K a year. There's still plenty of free parking spaces which pisses me off because I'm not a car owner, yet I pay New York City local taxes. So basically, I am subsidizing someone's free parking spot on the street. I think the city should charge market rates for those parking spots so and improve public transportation, which includes CitiBike. Most of those free parking spots are taken up by one person who usually leaves their car in that spot for days at a time. If you think that's not true, just watch the days when street sweepers come by and all the people sitting in their cars, moving aside for the street sweep, then parking right back in the same spot and then leave.
I'm sorry but when someone complains about CitiBike taking over a few taxpayer subsidized free parking spots which benefited almost no one but a few car owners, I think they're not smart enough to come up with a better reason to hate CitiBike.
Oh and one last thing (I'm the one talking about how these "free" parking spots are actually subsidized by taxpaying New York City residents), yes I am a CitiBike user and no, I'm not a hipster. I live around the EV area and I try to be a part of the community. Not everyone has to be a hipster to ride CitiBike and I've seen older NYC residents also take it. I was at one point a bike owner but using CitiBike gives me freedom from the fear of someone stealing the bike or being able to bike somewhere to run errands and then taking a cab home (such as shopping for household goods and stuff).
Just because a corporation decided to help defray the cost of the system so that taxpaying dollars don't have to be used (ironic that it's not used for Citibike but for these free parking spots) along with this stereotype that only hipsters ride Citibike, doesn't mean that the bike-share system actually have positive merits to it. Hey, a lot of people hate subways and buses saying that bus stops take valuable parking spots too but I don't see people picketing the abolition of public transport in this city.
Thanks Gojira, these hipster trolls and their enablers just don't like to deal with facts so they just make up their own facts or blurt out the first thing that enters their mind. Sorry about the hipster pic, I found another one that I'm pretty sure sums up the CitShills that love CitiBikes but hate free parking, as if any of that makes any sense.
Here's another pic that probably looks just like those CitiShills we all know and love. Not to worry,
CitiBike is now officially on the deathwatch list: according to the Wall Street Journal, the Citibike program needs to raise tens of millions of dollars to survive, and Mayor DeBlasio has already said no to a bailout by the city.
One big issue is the CitiBike branding itself. No other sponsor wants to pay money to help promote Citibanks brand since their message would get buried underneath it.
Prediction: the program goes bust and someone else steps in to take over the program without all the ugly Citibank branding. The annual fee will double and the daily fee will be reduced. Let the CitiShilling begin.
Via the WSJ:
March 20, 2014 10:08 PM
Citi Bike, Needing Millions of Dollars, Looks for Help
Leaders Seek to Rescue New York's Bike-Share Program
Leaders of Citi Bike are moving quickly to raise tens of millions of dollars to rescue the popular bike-share program as it loses money, according to people familiar with the matter.
Citi Bike's bright blue bicycles have become a seemingly indispensable part of some city neighborhoods, but its managers don't believe it can survive if it doesn't become more appealing to tourists and expand to new neighborhoods, the people familiar with the matter said.
The program's leaders have approached officials in Mayor Bill de Blasio's administration about raising Citi Bike's rates, the people said.
Earlier this month, Polly Trottenberg, the city's new transportation commissioner, said the bike-share program faced "a number of financial and operational challenges," though she didn't detail them.
One issue is that Citi Bike has proved more popular than expected with annual users who generate comparatively little revenue. Some 99,000 people pay $95 a year plus tax to be able to use the bikes for 45 minutes at a time.
The potential for far greater revenue, however, is with short-term users. Many of those were expected to be tourists, and they haven't used the bikes nearly as much as officials had anticipated, people familiar with the matter said.
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