Bike Sharing

When Citi Bike launched last year, ridership numbers quickly surpassed levels seen in other cities. New York's system had a number of advantages -- more stations, more bikes, more places to go, and more potential customers, for starters. But there's another reason so many people felt comfortable hopping on the blue bikes: For years before bike-share's launch, the city had been installing miles of protected bike lanes on several key north-south avenues in the Citi Bike service area.

It's official: Alta Bicycle Share, the company that runs Citi Bike, has a new owner, an infusion of cash, and a fresh face at the top -- longtime transit executive Jay Walder. At a press conference this afternoon, the new team promised to correct Citi Bike's blunders and double the system's size by the end of 2017.

The rumors were on target and the wait is over for New York City bike-share: With new management and new capital, the system is on track to cover a lot more ground. Here's the map of the expanded Citi Bike service area that's in the works, courtesy of Streetsblog's Stephen Miller.

The buyout of Alta Bicycle Share rumored since July is finally a done deal. REQX Ventures, an affiliate of the Related Companies and its Equinox unit, and Alta Bicycle Share, the company that operates Citi Bike, have agreed to terms on the purchase, according to published accounts and sources familiar with the negotiations.

This is part two of a five-part series by former NYC DOT policy director Jon Orcutt about the de Blasio administration's opportunities to expand and improve cycling in New York. Read part one here.

Buenos Aires is fast becoming one of the most admired cities in the world when it comes to reinventing streets and transportation.

Andrew Tangel at the Wall Street Journal had an encouraging update this week on the Citi Bike buyout plan first reported by Dana Rubinstein in Capital New York. It looks like the city is days away from announcing a deal in which REQX Ventures, an affiliate of the Related Companies and its Equinox unit, will buy out Alta Bicycle Share, the company that operates Citi Bike. The implications are big -- not just for bike-share in New York, but for several other major American cities as well.

Despite continually growing ridership, Alta Bicycle Share-operated bike-share systems across America will probably not be adding bikes or docks this year. The bankruptcy of Montreal-based Public Bike Share Company, known as Bixi, which developed and manufactured the equipment that Alta's systems use, has disrupted the supply chain that numerous cities were pinning their expansion plans on.

What if Yankees legend Yogi Berra had followed a season with 24 homers and 144 hits with one featuring 27 homers and 189 hits? Would the baseball scribes have declared “Yogi Power Shortage” because only one in seven hits was a homer instead of one in six? Duh, no. The headlines would have read, “Yogi Boosts Production Across the Board.” The fact that a greater share of base hits was singles and doubles would have been incidental to the fact that Yogi’s base hits and homers were both up.