Bike Sharing

With two stops in Brooklyn and one in Manhattan, the Department of Transportation this week continues its tour of community boards to present plans for city bike-share. In last week's presentation to Manhattan Community Board 2, DOT officials provided new details on the proposed boundaries for the bike-share system, its cost structure, siting criteria and the public process moving forward. The public also had a chance to offer preliminary input (it was all positive feedback from District 2) and ask questions about how bike-share will work. For those excited or curious about the program, these meetings are worth attending:

Committing to a "very intensive participatory planning process," top DOT officials provided a wealth of detail about the city's plans for bike-sharing at a meeting of Manhattan Community Board 2's transportation committee last night. Members of the board and local residents in attendance voiced strong support for the initiative.

Next week, NYC DOT and Alta Bikeshare will begin what promises to be a detailed public outreach process to help plan the city's new bike-share system. The schedule for the first community board presentations has been posted on the city's bike-share timeline.

In London, the bike-share system runs thanks to a $40 million sponsorship deal over five years, including naming rights, with financial giant Barclays.

For the next few weeks DOT and Alta Bike Share will be setting up bike-share demonstration kiosks where New Yorkers can see how it all works and try out the sturdy, three-speed bikes that will be available at 600 stations once the system is up and running.

When bike-share goes live next year, stations will be located every few blocks throughout Manhattan below 79th Street, give or take a few blocks, and much of northwest Brooklyn. The exact locations of the stations have yet to be decided, and siting them will be a big task for bike-share planners this fall. DOT is counting on public feedback to help guide the process.

At today's big bike-share press conference, most reporters seemed enthralled by the prospect of thousands of new cyclists hitting the streets and, of course, failing to follow the rules of the road (whether they were scared of that scenario or salivating over it is not clear). One reporter also told us she was "just scouting out possible angry people." But the passersby drawn to the enormous crowd and brightly-colored bikes in front of the Flatiron Building didn't seem worried or angry at all.

Addressing a plaza full of reporters at Madison Square this afternoon, Transportation Commissioner Janette Sadik-Khan announced that the city is entering the next phase of its initiative to launch a public bike system stretching from the Upper West Side to Bedford Stuyvesant. The system will be run by Alta Bike Share and consist of about 600 stations with 10,000 bicycles, creating a network of comparable size and density to bike-share systems in cities like London and Paris.