Despite Financial Concerns, Cities Are Doubling Down on Bike-Share

Ride your own damn bike and spend the money on infrastructure!  Everybody I know who supports this shit has 5 bikes.  In Austin the visiting tourist can rent a bike anywhere.  

Ongoing financial problems at PBSC (also known as Bixi), the Montréal-based bike-share equipment company, continue to ripple across North America. But even so, the continuing popularity of bike-share with the public is leading cities with PBSC contracts to call for expansion of their systems.
The hope among supporters in places including Toronto and New York is that with revised business models, bike-share can solidify its position as an integral element of the urban transportation menu.
According to the most recent public figures, PBSC, which is owned by the city of Montréal, is $42 million in debt, with a $6.5 million deficit and $5 million in outstanding payments. In September, the auditor general of Montréal expressed doubts over the company’s ability to continue operations. Last month, client Nice Ride Minnesota filed a notice of material breach of contract over long-standing disputes about software development, although at the time, Nice Ride officials emphasized that they hope to resolve the issues and that “Nice Ride values its relationship with PBSC and is optimistic that PBSC will restructure successfully.” In Vancouver, meanwhile, worries about PBSC’s financial stability might shut down the rollout of that city’s program altogether.

Despite Financial Concerns, Cities Are Doubling Down on Bike-Share - Sarah Goodyear - The Atlantic Cities

Citi Bike Cracked Seven Trips Per Bike Yesterday (That’s a Lot)

It appears to be working...

Citi Bike Cracked Seven Trips Per Bike Yesterday (That’s a Lot) | Streetsblog New York City

'Shiti Bike' Stickers Posted On NYC Citi Bikes (PHOTO)

According to the group's Facebook page, organizers are hoping to reclaim "NYC streets from corporate appropriation of Bike culture."
The page's most recent post includes a link to aHuffPost story showcasing various celebrities seen riding Citi Bikes. The link is attached with a comment that reads, "how much is the advertising budget?"
While the Citi Bike program launched with its fair share of detractors, Streets Blog noted last week there have been no deaths or serious injuries so far.


'Shiti Bike' Stickers Posted On NYC Citi Bikes (PHOTO)

Bike-Sharing Docks Also Serve as Gyms or Trash Cans

They rose from the earth overnight, some said, muscling the cars from their curbside perches: more than 300 hulking monuments to Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg’s surrender to the whims of the New York City cyclist. 

But even as the bike-sharing stations remain a source of dismay to some residents, they have served to illustrate a well-worn maxim of urban planning: If you build something, New Yorkers will find a way to lean on it.

Joining the ranks of fire hydrants, pay-phone booths and signposts before them, the bike kiosks have increasingly assumed an expanded role.

They provide temporary seating outside restaurants, when the bar is full.

They are high enough for a man to press his foot against to tie his shoe without bending over, and low enough for a dog to swathe almost the entire surface with urine.

Bike-Sharing Docks Also Serve as Gyms or Trash Cans - NYTimes.com

Citi Bike Share Program In NYC Marks Milestone With 1 Million Miles Traveled

Impressive.  I would like to see the analytics.  My guess is that it is mostly tourist riding these bikes.

Citi Bike Share Program In NYC Marks Milestone With 1 Million Miles Traveled

NYC Comedian Finds Worthwhile Use For Citi Bikes Not In Use « CBS New York

NYC Comedian Finds Worthwhile Use For Citi Bikes Not In Use « CBS New York

Citi Bikes Sitting Idle

4 Bikes are gone.  I wonder if they were stolen?

My man on the street in the New York took this picture in front of Grand Central Station this morning.  It looks like nobody is riding the new bikes.  Hmm....   The lesson for Austin is to build more bike lanes!!!  The tourists can ride the segways. Thanks man on the street!  I owe you a Texas Red - Rahr!

Austin bike-sharing program might not launch until end of 2013

BUILD BIKE LANES!!!!  $2,400,000 for bikes and kiosks is stupid and not responsible with our tax money (but this is Austin).  Build something that will last more then one or two years.  I know I'm in the minority within the bike community but the bike share is dumb.  Low income riders will not pay for a rental and medium to high income riders will ride their trusty steed.  The bike share is for tourist.  FOR ONCE SPEND OUR MONEY WISELY!!

MORE BIKE LANES!

Austin’s nascent bike-sharing program, which city officials had said a few months ago could be up and running by May, has been slowed by contracting delays and now probably won’t debut until late this year.
Negotiating a contract with nonprofit Bike Share of Austin to operate the program, after the Austin City Council in January approved the sole bidder, took longer than expected, said Shannon Wisner, a spokeswoman with Austin’s Public Works Department.
That contract wasn’t completed until May 20, city officials said.
A second procurement effort, to buy the approximately 400 heavy-duty bicycles (at about $1,000 each) and about 40 docking stations and kiosks (expected to cost as much as $50,000 apiece), isn’t complete. City Council Member Chris Riley said it is scheduled to come before the council for approval June 20, but the city staff will then have to work out a contract with the winning bidder.
That procurement couldn’t be completed until the Bike Share contract was finalized because the nonprofit will be providing some of the money used to purchase the equipment, Wisner said.

Austin bike-sharing program might not launch until end of 2013 | www.mystatesman.com

Bike-Hater Dorothy Rabinowitz Won’t Be Silenced -- Daily Intelligencer

After taking a reasonable amount of heat from reasonable people for her delusional rant against the "dreadful," "totalitarian," "all-powerful" "bike lobby," Wall Street Journal editorial board member Dorothy Rabinowitz has bravely stood up again against the "antagonism."

"If you understood from the vitriol that flowed in all of the blog world, you would know, if you walked through the streets of the city and you occasionally asked a bike rider who was careening down the sidewalk in all of his splendid, self-affirming, environmental helpist mood, to please not ride on the sidewalk, the answer is invariably an upraised third finger," she sang without taking a breath. "I thought that the blogosphere response beautifully captured the general sense of 'We don't owe you anything. We are the virtuous.'"

"The real truth is," she continued, "you can get many community leaders, you can get an obedient city council, all of whom are terrorized by this thing that really exists, the bike lobby." She's right: Ban bikes.

Bike-Hater Dorothy Rabinowitz Won’t Be Silenced -- Daily Intelligencer

New York City's Bike Share Skips Many - WSJ.com

While New York City's nearly two-week-old bike-share program already is among the largest in the world, it's passing over neighborhoods where nearly 90% of the city population lives.
The solar-powered docking stations and the nearly 6,000 stocky blue Citi Bikes are located in Manhattan below 59th Street and selected neighborhoods of Brooklyn. Vast swaths of the city—including Queens, the Bronx, Staten Island, most of Brooklyn and much of Manhattan—are left bikeless.
"It's obvious that it's well needed," said Samuel Thiam, owner of the Maison Harlem restaurant in Harlem, where the nearest docking station is miles away. "I ride bikes myself, and I think it should be all over the city."

New York City's Bike Share Skips Many - WSJ.com

Citi Bike is stolen before program even begins

The bike-share program rode into trouble last night before it was even launched — when someone stole one of the bikes as it was being delivered to a Manhattan rack, police said.
The pedal pilferer snatched the blue Citi Bike at around 6 p.m. in Kips Bay, and was able to ride off before workers noticed.
The crew had been busy placing a load of the $825 rental bicycles into a rack at Second Avenue and 25th Street, and had not yet locked them in place when the thief struck.
Workers realized a bike was swiped only when a passer-by shouted out.
After first trying to run after the crook — who was still at large last night — they flagged down cops.

“A cop car was passing by and the workers said, ‘Stop, stop, we’ve just been robbed,’” said Bolivar Arellano, a Post freelance photographer who witnessed the aftermath of the bike heist.


Citi Bike is stolen before program even begins - NYPOST.com

Wall Street Journal courageously takes on the totalitarian bike lobby - Salon.com

Comic book villain Wall Street Journal editorial board member Dorothy Rabinowitz will not be silenced by the “all-powerful enterprise” of the bike lobby a moment longer. In a courageous interview with the paper, Rabinowitz advocates on behalf of the “majority of citizens of [New York City]” who are “appalled” by the new bike sharing program and its many attendant dangers.
Beyond leaving New Yorkers vulnerable to the whims of positively homicidal cyclists, a fleet of new bike racks have left New York’s “best neighborhoods” absolutely “begrimed by these blazing-blue Citi Bank bikes,” she says.
Think that’s the very worst of it? Think again.
To find out more, just watch as Rabinowitz spends five minutes explaining how New York has never known a menace as great as a bike share program:
Wall Street Journal courageously takes on the totalitarian bike lobby - Salon.com

Endless problems for Citi Bike share program

Build Bike Lanes!  Let people ride their own bike.

Endless problems for Citi Bike share program : A.M. News Links | SILive.com

Fort Worth's new bike-sharing program kicks off | Breaking News | News from Fort Worth, ...

Sorry to rain on your parade but build more bike lanes.  Have these people seen 

"Field of Dreams"?  Share it and they will ride without looking where they are going.

Pay Attention!

Fort Worth's new bike-sharing program kicks off | Breaking News | News from Fort Worth, ...