As an avid biker in NY who has used both DC's and Montreal's Bixi program I cannot contain my excitement and support for this service.  It has literally transformed downtown Montreal and made it a biker's paradise.  For the system to really work well, we need protected bike lanes like they have installed all over Montreal and are building in DC now.  Don't take sidewalk space - take street space - less cars - more bikes mean 1) a healthier NY 2) less pollution for the earth 3) less fossil fuel importation.  Cities around the world are recognizing that the reign of the private car is very "last century".  Of course cars will always have a place in the transportation mix, there is just no longer justification for giving them top priority in our streetscape.  Especially in New York! Vandalism will happen, thefts will happen - but these losses just need to be built into the system. Do you think every ride on the subway is paid for?  The subway is never vandalized?  Does this mean we shut it down?  Of course not.  Bring on BikeShare NY and welcome to the healthy new age.  It's so much fun to ride around the city - especially in protected lanes.  So, build a comprehensive system and you will see widespread adoption - I guarantee it.  The only reason I don't take my bike more often is because I don't want to carry it up and down subway stairs or there is a lack of secure parking.  Bikeshare solves these issues and just makes sense for the short distances and quick errands we run all the time in Manhattan.

I'd like Times Up to shut up.

A bike co-op can no more provide bikes for the entire city than the Food co-op can provide food for all five boroughs.  Sometimes you need a little corporate involvement.

Exactly my point. Co-ops work in small, privileged communities, but not in the "real" world.

 YAWN... more bullshit for tourists

Not for tourists and not BS.  Go to Montreal and DC - you will understand.  Basically it is designed for short errands - you insert credit card - take bike and ride to where you are going - you have 30 mins  - otherwise you get a surcharge.  You have 24 hours to take out bikes, as long as you don't keep one for more than 30 mins.  So it's designed for running errands or getting from Subway to your friends house which is a bit of a long walk - but a quick bike ride.  Definitely not for tourists because they want a bike to use for hours and this is not that.

The 'Times "specialist" wrote breathlessly about the "sudden discovery" of the impossibility of finding space for the bike parking racks.  Really!

Of all the issues making NYC a difficult place for bike sharing, lack of space for the racks was always number one.  Sure, theft and vandalism is the threat, but not unique to NY, as much as we would like to think we have the world's best thieves and vandals.  Our sidewalk and roadway parking space is at a high premium.  But this is no surprise to DOT or any of the bike share supporters. 

Why was it a surprise to Grynbaum, the author of the original 3 June article (today Christine Haughney is credited) when everyone else knows there will be a fight to the death over space.   Free or very cheap parking for cars, and free sidewalks for restaurants are a strong economic incentive to fight bike share.

Washington, DC has diagonal streets that create many plazas to place racks. But DC has also used regular sidewalk spaces and roadway spaces.  IN NYC I'm sure the garden groups will oppose the racks even on plazas where there is space, because they will argue they should be planting there.

The question was raised about finding enough bikes at the right time - will all the bikes migrate from residential neighborhoods to the office blocks in the early morning, leaving the racks empty? (I'm thinking Upper West Side for example.)   Again, I saw in DC where the bike share operator has electronic tracking of the bikes and rack occupancy, and sends trucks to shuttle loads of bikes from full racks to empty ones. 

The bike tracking and parking electronics are why a single city wide bike share system is needed, and not just a friendly series of bike co-ops.  The difference between bike share and the Time's Up program is that bike share needs only a limited number of bikes and limited number of parking spaces, shared by many people, while Time's Up provides many inexpensive bikes to many people but each person needs a full time bike and a parking space for each trip.  Both are valid and good, but not identical or fully interchangeable.

The Times failed to note one of the most serious opponents of the bike share - the taxi and limo industry.  Bike share is quite capable of cutting into taxi's most lucrative trips - the short runs that turn over quickly, particularly running crosstown where the subways don't run and the buses, when they come, are slooow.  Perfect trips for a bike share with 30 minutes of free cycling.  Watch the taxi industry closely.

Doomed, (unfortunately). This is known as the tragedy of the commons, a concept liberals are still struggling with.

Wrong - working fabulously in Montreal, DC and Paris.

The question is why did none of the major vendors choose to bid on the NYC project and why did the city have to pick this half-assed company? Answer: Because the big guys don't think it can work.

I'm all for bike sharing, but the bad guys will make it impossible to do it profitably. There's no shortage of guys willing to use stolen credit cards to pilfer bikes for resale: see MetroCards. The cops aren't going to do anything about the stolen bikes.

I don't doubt that bike co-ops are successful in their mission, but they operate on a tiny scale and use actual store fronts and humans to conduct transactions. To do that on the scale that would make a difference for commuters, there would have to be massive amounts of privately invested cash involved.

The major vendors they are talking about do not have a single bike sharing system in operation in North America. Almost all large bike sharing systems in North America are implemented by one of the two companies that are bidding for the contract. In particular, the system proposed by Alta exists at a large scale in London and Montreal. I think that the remark about the major companies not bidding is pointless.
If there is a place where a bike sharing system can be profitable, it is New-York. Living in Montreal, I can tell you that such a system is so convenient. In Montreal, there are 40000 members now. In New-York, there will be easily 5 times as much because the density is higher and this is what matters. To that, you have to add the fact that there are much more tourists that could use the bikes and that there is a potential for much higher revenues from publicity.

I'm trying to keep an open mind but I still don't get it. I give it two months before the bikes start showing up under a Chinese food delivery guy or people start locking their favorite bike to the kiosk so it will be there when they want it. In popular areas of the city, bikes will be hard to find and in other areas they'll be damaged before they're ever ridden. (I've used bike shares in Paris and they're hard to find outside of the more affluent neighborhoods.) It used to be that the moment a credit card was stolen, the thief would go to an electronics store — now they'll just go to (unmanned) bike kiosks and empty them out.

I hope the bike-share program proves me wrong. In fact, I'm rooting for them to prove me wrong.

Based on the DC experience, the bikes are clunky (good for a quick 15-30 minute ride), heavy, 3-speed, and they have built-in GPS locators.  All of those things are helpful in theft prevention.

If none of those things have happened in DC, Montreal, Denver, or Minneapolis, who's to say they'll happen here?

I just don't understand the kneejerk reaction to a system that's being tested this year. There's a reason it's supposed to be tested this summer: to see what problems arise and to address them before a full rollout.

Having used the system in DC -- vandalism and theft have not been serious problems. The only real drawback is the system hasn't been able to expand fast enough to meet the rapidly growing demand.

"... hard to find outside of the more affluent neighborhoods"? I thoroughly disagree. I was just there a few months ago, and they were all over creation. (The only complaint I have with Paris' system is that you're out of luck unless you have a European credit card, complete with a chip.)

We'll have to agree to disagree for now. I was last there a year and a half ago and found it impossible to find a (working) bike outside of the touristy areas. I bet our different experiences are due to improvements since then. 

I just hope this bike plan is better managed than NYC's attempt to install self-cleaning public toilets.

I thought Londons bike share was on the way to turning a profit? http://www.guardian.co.uk/envi...