It's easy being green with bicycle share program | New York Daily News
By KAMELIA ANGELOVA
Friday, July 10, 2008
It’s as easy as riding a bike.
When I heard about the new bicycle-sharing program that could help ease the city’s traffic struggles, I decided to take my spin class workout to the streets.
The pilot program – which runs through Monday – lets intrepid New Yorkers grab a bike from one of four Manhattan locations and drop it off at another.
Bike sharing is already common in Canadian and European cities, with more than 10,000 bikes at 750 locations in Paris alone. There, riders rent the bikes from designated racks with a swipe of a credit card or a cell phone call for less than 50 cents.
The station I tried in New York – at Birdbath Bakery at 145 Seventh Ave. South – lacked the high-tech features of its foreign counterparts, but it had eight shiny blue bikes with helmets hanging from their bars ready to roll.
Streetfilm on The New York Bike-Share Project!
The people over at Streetfilms came by to do a piece on our Bike-Share Project yesterday! Take a peek!
What Does it Take To Turn NYC Bike Friendly? | Village Voice Blog
By NATE MATON
Thursday, July 10, 2008
It might have taken $5 gas prices and an MTA budget crisis but politicians and residents alike are reevaluating bikes as the best way of getting around town.
Today the Forum for Urban Design launched a second bike-share program as an exhibit of how a citywide model could function. Yesterday, the city released a Request for Expressions of Interest for a citywide bike-share. Transportation Alternatives opened a free bike-share program for Governor’s Island every Friday a month ago. The Forum for Urban Design also is attempting to redesign Red Hook as the most bike friendly part of town through a design competition.
“A Public bike-share is an extension of a public transportation system,” said Wiley Norvel, spokesperson for Transportation Alternatives. “It can be as integral into people’s lives as subways and taxi cabs.”
Bike Sharing Rolling Forward in NYC | Gothamist.com
By JOHN DEL SIGNORE
Thursday, July 10, 2008
A new bike sharing program on Governors Island has proven so popular that the DOT is considering ways to implement a similar program throughout the rest of the city. Transportation Alternatives is reporting that since launching “Free Bike Fridays” on June 6th, bike ridership on the island has more than tripled, from 120 daily bike renters to more than 400. On weekends, rentals are available for $5 for 30 minutes, which gives cyclists enough time to pedal the circumference of the island.
The DOT is now seeking proposals for a citywide bike share program, which has been successful in Paris. The program would enable riders, for a small fee or annual membership, to access a bicycle at a bike station (normally near a mass transit hub) and then return it to other stations in the system. DOT Commissioner Janette Sadik-Khan said bike sharing is integral to the city’s goal of doubling the number of bicycle commuters:
New York is a world-class city for biking, and we are looking to build a world-class bike network. The number of bike commuters has increased 77% since 2000. We now have more than 300 miles of on-street bike lanes, more than 5,000 bike racks, and have distributed more than 15,000 bicycle helmets.
In the short term, the city is working to provide free bicycle rentals in August at Summer Streets to encourage cycling along 90 blocks of car-free streets. And starting today, the Forum for Urban Design is launching a five-day bike share. From now until Monday, free bikes will be available at four locations downtown; attendants provide helmets, ask that riders sign a waiver, and get credit card information to discourage theft – which is a smart move considering how quickly borrowing can turn into keeping.
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City Explores Bike Share Program | WNYC.ORG
by ARUN VENUGOPAL
Thursday, July 10, 2008
The city’s plan to begin a bike sharing program is being met with enthusiasm by biking advocates.
The Department of Transportation has put out a request for expressions of interest for companies who can help initiate a program like one in Paris which has 20,000 public bikes that can be picked up and dropped off at points around the city.
Wiley Norvell is with Transportation Alternatives.
NORVELL: New York City’s a public transportation town, and we want our transportation landscape to include a bicycle share so that it’s just as common for a New Yorker to hop on a public bicycle as it is to hop on the subway or hop into a taxi cab.
REPORTER: The city estimates that about 1 percent of commuting trips are currently made by bicycle.
It wants to double that figure by 2015, but the Forum for Urban Design says a bike share program would make biking grow much faster than that.
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Bike share making strides | Metro New York
By AMY ZIMMER
Thursday, July 10, 2008
Is New York gearing up to follow Paris, whose bike share program has 10,000 bikes at 750 stations?
The Department of Transportation wants to create a network of publicly accessible bikes at minimal cost at transit and commercial hubs throughout the city, DOT Commissioner Janette Sadik-Khan’s announced yesterday.
The number of bike commuters has increased 77 percent, Khan said, and the city aims to double the number of bicycle commuters.
Since launching the “Free Bike Fridays” on Governors Island a month ago, ridership there has more than tripled from 120 daily bike riders to more than 400, according to Transportation Alternatives.
The Forum for Urban Design, which had a successful five-day New York bike share program last year, is reprising the project, starting today. For more information, visit: www.nybikeshare.org.
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Get a Taste of Public Bike-Share This Week | Streetsblog
by BEN FRIED
Thursday, July 10, 2008
If yesterday’s DOT announcement has whetted your appetite for public bikes, the New York Bike-Share Project has just the thing. From today until Monday, free bikes will be available at four locations in the general vicinity of Greenwich Village. To take one for a spin, participants sign a waiver and give their credit card information. There is no charge for the first 30 minutes.
Rather than duplicate the services of a bike rental shop, the goal is to encourage short, commuter-type trips, according to Lisa Chamberlain of the Forum for Urban Design, one of the organizers behind the project. This is the second year the Forum has helped put together a bike-share experiment. “When we did this last year, the idea was to get the attention of the city,” says Chamberlain. “This year it’s to reinforce the idea and to raise the awareness of the public.”
The locations open at 7:30 a.m. and close around 6 p.m., except for the Seventh Avenue South station, which will remain open until 8 p.m. The sites are each stocked with between five and eight bikes that will be re-distributed as needed.
The five-day demonstration will wrap up Monday evening with a reception at City Bakery featuring DOT Commissioner Janette Sadik-Khan.
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Good News For Bike Lovers | NYMAG.com Daily Intel
By KATE DAILEY
Thursday, July 10, 2008
Strap on your helmet and roll up your pant legs: it’s free bike week! Coming right after the city’s call for bike-sharing feasibility plans, the Forum for Urban Design and its partners are launching The New York Bike Share Project 2008. Starting today and running through Monday, pedal-philiacs can cruise around town (provided “town” is somewhere below 23rd Street) on a hybrid cycle free of charge for 30 minutes. The bikes can then be returned to any of the four bike-share stations set up downtown — like Zipcar, without the carbon emissions. The Forum organized a similar, if smaller, event last year. Its executive director, Lisa Chamberlain, cites the project’s success as influencing the city’s plan to explore bike sharing. “The idea last year, as well as this year, was to introduce the concept to New York, to public officials as well as the public at large,” she said. The program obviously got the attention of Janette Sadik-Khan, commissioner for the New York City Department of Transportation.
City Will Explore Broad Bike-Sharing Plan | New York Times
By WILLIAM NEUMAN
Thursday, July 10, 2008
The city took a tentative step this week toward fulfilling the dream of a certain kind of urban idealist, saying that it will explore the possibility of creating a bike-sharing program that could make hundreds or even thousands of bicycles available for public use.
“This is a really big deal,” said Wiley Norvell, a spokesman for Transportation Alternatives, an advocacy group for cyclists, pedestrians and transit riders. “In the realm of things you can do to boost bicycling in a city, bike-share is at the top of the list.”
Bike Sharing Concept Could One Day Ride Into New York | New York Sun
By ANNA PHILLIPS
Thursday, July 10, 2008
A year after Mayor Bloomberg took a skeptical view of Paris’s bike sharing program, the city’s Department of Transportation is expressing interest in creating a similar system.
Yesterday, the DOT issued a request for proposals from organizations and companies that could advise the city on how to create a bike sharing program. In Paris and many other European cities, bike sharing programs involve thousands of bicycles that can be unlocked, ridden, and returned to different locations for a small fee. In Washington, D.C., a similar program, though on a smaller scale, began in May.
While in Paris last year, Mr. Bloomberg told the New York Times that the implementation of a bike sharing program in New York would face challenges, such as damaged roads and a small — but increasing — number of bike lanes.
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