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New Redesigned Citi Bikes To Hit NYC Streets This Year
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.
wtf?
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.
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/
Wow. I assume there must be some kind of bollard between the parking lane and the cycle path otherwise people would just park over the bike lane? That would be a significant engineering exercise then.
That said I doubt it was just done for these citicycle things. If you can make your city more friendly to bicycles then you would hope to be able to reduce traffic congestion and load. Brisbane doesn't get too cold but it does get stinking hot in summer. So most major city buildings now have been retrofitted with larger showers in the basement as well as cycle lockups. This happened because we have seen an explosion in cyclists and the state and local govt has built a number of dedicated cycle ways which run from the suburbs all the way into the city.
Have a look here - https://www.google.com.au/maps... all the green are dedicate bike paths.
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
Frame geometry is a well explored and long-term empirically proven science. This is ridiculous and pointless branding.
I think though you are talking an order of magnitude difference in cost, or more. I would expect that citibikes are relatively cheap in the grand scheme of infrastructure and any modifications to roads will spread across to private cycles as well.
Looking at your link the change to the road ways is significant though. Certainly much greater than the equivalent changes here in Aus. If you are going to make that level of change then you want want to have a support network in place for them as well.
This is how we do them in Brisbane - http://architecture.org.nz/wp-...
http://www.abc.net.au/reslib/2...
Basically just paint.
The real problem with the bikes in New York and anywhere else that far North is that for 4 - 6 months out of the year it is simply too cold or too wet for anyone but insane bike messengers to ride around. All the money and effort that has gone into redesigning the traffic system for this seasonal commuting option is simply insane. The program would make much more sense in cities with milder weather.
I live in Perth, Western Australia and we have very mild winters (low daytime temperatures are in the mid teens). My commutes were faster in Winter when all the cyclists were in their nice, warm cars instead of on their bikes. They dont even want to ride when it's just a little bit cold so massive redesigns dont work here either.
Oh, and it's winter here right now. My drive to work is consistently 5-10 minutes faster.
Calling someone a "hater" only means you can not rationally rebut their argument.
Lots of apps do it, that's not what I'm asking for. I want it integrated so that it's just automatically there in every app that uses a map. So, for instance, I can look up a restaurant in Yelp, and see where I should drop off a bike nearby without switching apps and finding the place again.
"The worst tyrannies were the ones where a governance required its own logic on every embedded node." - Vernor Vinge
I think though you are talking an order of magnitude difference in cost, or more. I would expect that citibikes are relatively cheap in the grand scheme of infrastructure and any modifications to roads will spread across to private cycles as well.
Oh, definitely. Sorry, didn't mean to imply otherwise. The MTA budget is in the tens of billions, while the bikes are in the tens of millions. But the MTA moves 8 million+ per day while citibikes are ridden ~35,000 times per day.
I think Citi foots most of the upfront cost for the bikes but they are far from free to use: https://www.citibikenyc.com/pr...
Compare that to a $3 subway ride.
I am all for people riding their bikes, but a citibank advertisement is no substitute for a proper, functioning mass transit system. But from Citi's perspective, as an brand-awareness advertising campaign, I would be that the bikes are an unquestionable success. I just hope we aren't wasting too much time on a feel-good fix, and not enough on the real needs of the city. ( The MTA is thought to be $30B in debt: http://www.capitalnewyork.com/... )
Anyways, thanks for your links, hope to visit your country someday. Now I know where to bike!
meep
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.
Do a bit of research and you should get the price down.
I have a friend who is a type I diabetic with a number of complications (occasional dizzy spells) which rules out being able to drive a car or ride a regular bike.
I was able to source a kit adult tricycle for about AUD$300 and a bike conversion kit from http://dillengerelectricbikes.... for AUD$700 (replace the front hub). There are some shipping costs which I haven't included, assembly took about a day and a half (one day for the trike, 4 hours for the conversion kit). I have come across adult trikes are used by the maintenance crews on industrial sites.
In hindsight given that it was a trike I could of gone sealed lead acid battery conversion kit (AUD$360 - includes electric hub, battery, controller and all the components). Providing that you are moderately competent with hand tools such as a spanner and hex keys you could replicate what I did for AUD$800 / USD$600.
NY is 10’ more south than Amsterdam, we bike al year round weather be damned.
https://www.google.com.au/maps...
Exactly the kind of solution that can't be shat out by a computer and is best left to designers of high performance custom frames.
There are very few cities *less* like the US than NYC.
Granted, I'm sure the bikes *will* get trashed and vandalized, it is after all NYC, but not because people like cars and hate bikes. You have to be *mad* to drive a car in NYC (well, Manhattan anyway, that mostly where I've been in NYC), and even madder to drive a large one, unless by large you mean basically a tank, which would be pretty much the only way to get pedestrians not to walk right in front of you whenever they want.