Thank you to everyone who helped make The New York Bike-Share Project 2008 not only a reality but a rousing success!

Over our four days (we prematurely canceled yesterday because of the forecast for rain and thunderstorms) we spoke to countless people and “shared” over 200 rides!

None of this would have been possible without the help of our sponsors and partners, all noted on the sidebar of our website here, but we also wanted to be sure to thank every one of our supervisors and volunteers we were unable to name at last night’s reception:

Thank you Nicole S., Abe P., Sarah T., Julian F., and Meredith L. for supervising our stations. You were the public face of our project and you all did wonderful jobs.

Thanks also to our army of volunteers: Aaron K., Alex S. (who submitted some wonderful pictures as well!), Alicia S., Amanda Y., Anne H., Anne P., Betty-Ann M., Christopher J., Dan D., Danya S., David Y., Eileigh D., Eryn R., Gabriela A., Gina K., James H., Janice Z., Jenifer C., Jon K., Hana S., Hilary N., Kasia N., Katie L., Laura A., Laura G., Lindsay A., Lindsi S., Macgregor H., Marian L., Naomi D., Patrick H., Peter W., Rebecca W., Rich C., Sam M., Stacey P., Stefan T., Tyler C., and Yelena Z. (Phew!) You were all tireless in your enthusiasm and we greatly appreciate your devotion to our cause.

We hope that the city of New York will take it from here and encourage all of you who have been following the progress of our project, or who have stopped by to share words of support, to encourage your elected officials to make a permanent bike-sharing system here a priority.

See pictures of our bike-sharers in action!

Created with Admarket’s flickrSLiDR.

(If you participated in The New York Bike-Share Project 2008 and have pictures you’d like to share, email us!)

Yesterday, we had a record of more than 60 riders (unofficial count stands at 63)!

Participants were rather evenly split between all stations and, miraculously, at the end of the day, bicycles had redistributed themselves so that all stations ended up with the same number of bikes they’d started with!

Thanks to everyone who’s stopped by, ridden a bike, or otherwise encouraged us to keep going. Let’s have another record-breaking day!

The people over at Streetfilms came by to do a piece on our Bike-Share Project yesterday! Take a peek!

Yesterday, we had a total of 23 riders from the four stations: 9 each from West 18th Street and 7th Avenue South; 4 from Kenmare Street; and 1 from 1st Avenue.

Initially, the bikes were distributed as follows:

10 at City Bakery (3 West 18th Street);
8 at Storefront (97 Kenmare Street);
and
6 at each Birdbath location (145 7th Avenue South and 233 1st Avenue)

At the end of the first day, they were distributed thusly:

10 at City Bakery;
11 at Storefront;
5 at the 1st Avenue Birdbath;
and
4 at the 7th Avenue South Birdbath

Even with 9 riders, the number of bikes at City Bakery remained constant. This means that those riders either stayed in the neighborhood or the number of returns to City Bakery was roughly equal to the number of check-outs from City Bakery. Either way, it’s pretty interesting.

Activity at Storefront for Art and Architecture, however, was a bit different as it appears to have been more popular with drop-offs than pick-ups.

Why is all this important to note?

Because bike-share systems are self-regulating. The ultimate position of the bikes tells you how people are using them and where they’re most needed. Based on the information culled form a single day, we’ve learned that perhaps we don’t need to start each day with 10 bikes at Storefront as they’re likely to remain there (and thus, not utilized within the system) throughout the day.

The only way a bike-share is effective is if bikes are available when and where people need them. We hope that with each day, we’ll continue to learn more about where, among our four stations, those places are.