Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

New Redesigned Citi Bikes To Hit NYC Streets This Year

Posted by samzenpus on from the new-wheels dept.

New submitter Robertoswins writes: 1,000 new redesigned Citi Bikes will be hitting the streets of New York City this summer with a slimmer redesign. Designed by Olympic racing bike designer Ben Serrota, the new bikes will start rolling out in a week. Another 1,400 units of the new bikes will be added during the company's expansion into Brooklyn and Queens later this year.

5 of 100 comments (clear)

  1. Serotta, actually by smellsofbikes · · Score: 4, Informative

    Ben Serotta is the spelling, for what it's worth.
    He built great frames, and a lot of people were sorry to see the company vanish after a merger. I'm glad he's found a new gig in the bike world, coz he's a nice guy.

    --
    Nostalgia's not what it used to be.
  2. Nice, we've had this for a few years now. by Predathar · · Score: 3, Informative

    Montreal has had this for a few years (BIXI), hasn't been profitable yet but many people use it and enjoy it for the couple of months when it's available (usually early May to November if I remember correctly). https://montreal.bixi.com/

    1. Re:Nice, we've had this for a few years now. by ciaran2014 · · Score: 5, Informative

      It seems these systems have taken over the world in less than ten years:

      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

      --
      Help build the anti-software-patent wiki
  3. Re:Ride one in January by beakerMeep · · Score: 3, Informative

    Over the last 10-15 years NYC has significantly redesigned a lot of streets to fit bike lanes. They lowered the speed limit from 30 to 25 (past year or two), and added a lot more pedestrian stuff too I think. They also redesigned some traffic flow regarding right and left turns. (I am not sure all that was about bikes though).

    Here's an article from 2010:
    http://cityroom.blogs.nytimes....

    Most Citi bikes go ununsed as far as I can tell. Bikes are good, but I am not sure this was a good use of resources and space. I personally would've rather seen cleaner, faster, quieter and more reliable subways than more advert-bikes. But it's not so sexy for citibank to donate a tiny fraction of the MTA's budget for some billboards/posters.

    That said, citibikes are far from the worst thing to waste money and time and space on. I just dont think it's clear if they are really a net positive.

    --
    meep
  4. actual stats: 35k trips, 80k miles a day by SuperBanana · · Score: 3, Informative

    Most Citi bikes go ununsed as far as I can tell.

    You tell wrong. There are 6,000 bikes in the system and there's roughly 35,000 daily users.

    I personally would've rather seen cleaner, faster, quieter and more reliable subways than more advert-bikes. But it's not so sexy for citibank to donate a tiny fraction of the MTA's budget for some billboards/posters.

    Thank goodness we have urban transit planners, people with degrees in this stuff. They are heavily, heavily pushing bicycle transit and bike shares. Not because it's 'sexy', but because it works.

    You can plop down a bike share station in a matter of days or weeks (the biggest hassle are the community meetings) which affords enormous flexibility; it takes months to redo a bus route, and decades to plan a subway line. Bike share bikes convert a fair number of people over to bike ownership, too - and the presence or more bike riders on the city's streets makes the streets safer for everyone.

    --
    Please help metamoderate.