Balancing on bicycles
Twenty-five degrees and snowy isn’t our idea of bicycle weather, but Friday was a banner day for biking in New York City nonetheless, one that may well yield the orderly expansion of bike-sharing beyond the Manhattan-centric boundaries of Citi Bike. Standing in the freezing cold, Transportation Commissioner Polly Trottenberg announced the city is inviting dockless bike systems to serve New Yorkers outside the current bike-share core. All interested providers — including Citi Bike — can submit ideas, for bikes to roll next summer.
For all of the ubiquity of Citi Bike, the bulky blue bikes with balloon tires are limited to Manhattan south of 130th St. and adjacent areas of Queens and Brooklyn. The vast majority of the five boroughs are out of luck.
This isn’t the result of malice, but economics: Citi Bike cruises on rider revenue, as it should. A mayor begrudging necessary subway repairs shouldn’t even think about pouring subsidy into a citywide bicycle network.
To reach the underserved areas without leaning on taxpayers, Citi Bike — run by its parent company, Motivate, whose boss is former MTA head Jay Walder — has offered to expand its docking stations and fleet, provided they get a few small concessions from the city. Fine with us.
Trottenberg has other options in mind: authorizing a series of dockless pilot programs.
She’s right that they’re the future. Technology allows GPS-chip-implanted bicycles to self-lock though a smartphone app, dispensing with the need for the heavy metal docks.
The upside is convenience and, theoretically, availability anywhere. The worry is clutter on the streetscape, and a threat to the bike-share rights that are fairly Citi Bike’s in the busy zone.
Trottenberg is right that in the long run, there’s no holding back the introduction of dockless systems. It’s better to try to rationally introduce them to underserved areas, while taking care not to endanger the blue bikes’ fiefdom, than to be reactive.
In fact, Citi Bike ought to make a play for the outer borough franchise. Imagine a dockless extension in less-dense parts of Queens, Brooklyn, the Bronx and Staten Island that seamlessly integrates with the network that already blankets Manhattan and parts of Brooklyn and Queens.
Get pedaling.