‘Dockless’ bikes to NY

A San Francisco company will dump 300 dockless share bikes across the Big Apple on Monday — and it doesn’t have permission from the city to do it.

Spin will drop 150 bicycles throughout Manhattan and Brooklyn and another 150 in the Rockaways, said Councilman Eric Ulrich of Queens, who is in favor of the company moving in even though New York has a contract with Citi Bike.

“Bike-sharing represents the future, and I don’t believe we should be protecting Citi Bike as a monopoly,” said the Republican, whose district includes the Rockaways. “Citi Bike has a contract to have docks on city property, and that’s fine, but the city has to let bike riders and New Yorkers decide who they want to pay.”

Unlike Citi Bike, which requires riders to pick up and return bikes at stations, dockless bike-share companies use cycles fitted with self-locking technology that customers access with an app. Riders can pick up and leave the bikes anywhere.

One critic said dockless bikes “litter the streets everywhere they go” and “end up in the middle of sidewalks and in dumpsters and in the way of everything.”

A spokesman for the city Department of Transportation said: “We are interested in the potential of new technology. But ad-hoc promotions for individual companies are not the way to do it.”

At least five dockless bikeshare firms have been exploring setting up shop here since spring, officials say.

Spin did not return calls seeking comment.