Cover Story: Urban Cycles, NYC Bike Share

Cover

After riding Velib all over Paris, my mind changed on city-wide bike share. Go big or go home was the declaration, meaning if you’re going to deploy a successful share, do it across a city so cyclists can ride from one station to the next. And that’s what NYC has done like Paris, Montreal, and DC. After software delays and flooding delays, NYC Bike Share is live and happening now. So significant a change for the city, it made a New Yorker Cover. In an interview, the illustrator Marcellus Hall said, “I’ve only been ‘doored’ twice and continues to explain how he survives managed to survive for fifteen years as a cyclist in the city.

I’m very careful. I look into the side mirrors of the parked cars to see if there’s movement inside. I ride only on the left side of the street because there’s less of chance of a passenger getting out than of a driver. Actually, I read it in some cyclist publication that, as a cyclist, you’re allowed to take up a whole lane and sometimes, I even do that—though it’s a risky proposition. I’m not one of those hard-core bike freaks; it’s just a good way for me to get around in the city

It’ll probably prove the best way and to his point, the last time I rode in NYC, our group got attacked. There’s only so much space there and while they’ve added 350 miles of bike lanes, “I hope nobody gets hurt,” Mr. Liu told the NYT.

But this is thousands of bicycles on the streets of Manhattan, used by people who haven’t ridden bikes on the streets of Manhattan.

True and they figured it out in Paris and London, where Boris bikes led to an economic boom. After all the complaints, expect they’ll figure it out in NYC too.

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