Bike Sharing

On Fox 5's Good Day program with Rosanna Scotto and Greg Kelly (son of Ray) this morning, Streetsblog columnist Steve Vaccaro skillfully, smoothly debated Jeffrey Barr, the lawyer representing Manhattan's anti-bike-share NIMBYs. Steve's performance speaks for itself. All I have to say is, put this man on TV more.

Setting aside the sheer entitlement it must take to sue the city over a public amenity installed on the public right of way, let's just appreciate the irony of the complaints coming from anti-bike-share litigants.

I didn’t get to speak at the Manhattan Community Board 2 meeting last night to discuss bike-share -- I stayed outside too long kibitzing on West 11th Street, so my speaker card landed at the bottom of the stack. Here’s what I would have said:

Republican mayoral candidate Joseph Lhota, on WNYC's Brian Lehrer Show yesterday, said that while he didn't "know this for a fact," he views the bike-share program as an example of failed agency coordination in the Bloomberg administration, because he'd read press reports that people were complaining about new bike-share stations potentially impeding emergency response. Despite Lhota's speculation, based off hysterical media reports, the Fire Department says they were consulted by DOT and that the stations have not been a problem.

There is nothing exceptional or interesting about the sight of cars parked in front of a New York City residence. But I'm running this dull photo anyway, because this is basically the same condition that has irritated some residents in downtown Manhattan neighborhoods about bike-share. Instead of cars going in between the traffic lane and the sidewalk in front of their building, it's a public bike station, and for some people -- specifically, the residents of 99 Bank Street -- the transition was so jarring they felt compelled to litigate.

With NYC's bike-share system in the delicate period where new stations are going in but people can't yet use the bikes, the city's press corps is gorging on stories about conflict. The reporters at the Post and CBS2 better enjoy it while it lasts, because once people get used to seeing bike-share in action, these stations are going to be about as newsworthy as bus shelters.

With bike-share stations hitting the streets but the launch still a few weeks away, there's a lot of misinformed speculation floating around about Citi Bike. A favorite tactic of the bike-share opposition is to conjure visions of chaos and "hell on wheels" after the system launches, as the Daily News did in a recent opinion piece. But there's a reason the anti-bike-share crowd has to invoke imaginary scenarios: In the real world, crash statistics from bike-share cities show that bike-share users are less likely to be involved in crashes than other cyclists.

You have to hand it to residents of 99 Bank Street. The lawsuit to have a bike-share station removed from the street in front of their West Village building is a textbook example of reactionary NIMBYism.

Over the weekend, @KyleGiunta posted this tantalizing photo of a Citi Bike station with bikes in it on Front Street in DUMBO. The bikes were docked for a photo shoot, not the imminent launch of the system (installations have reached as far up as the NYU area, the last we checked -- still a lot more to go before they get to 59th Street), but this is the closest thing we've seen to the final look and feel of the stations. Note the angled docks, which come in handy when street width is scarce.