Long-Delayed Bike Share Program Coming To Montague St. & Promenade

By on April 1, 2013 8:32 am in Brooklyn Heights, News, Sports, Streets, Traffic

New York’s long-delayed bike-share program is preparing to launch in May, but according to a story in the New York Post, some city residents are “trying to put the brakes on cycle stations planned for their blocks,” claiming they will create congestion and “cheapen” neighborhoods. Mentioned in the Sunday piece are Manhattan’s SoHo, Brooklyn Navy Yard, TriBeCa—and Brooklyn Heights.

“Heights residents are bracing for 39 docks on Montague Street, in the street’s parking lane, and 23 bikes on the Promenade, where riding bicycles is currently illegal,” reporter Kate Briquelet writes.

The bike-share network will include at least 5,000 two-wheelers across 293 stations when it launches in May. Citibank, the program’s sponsor, plans to eventually provide 10,000 bikes. Commuters can get a bike, ride it and return it to any docking location with a subscription: $95 annually, or $9.95 a day. The network begins in Brooklyn and Manhattan south of 59th Street before reaching North Brooklyn and Queens by year end.

DOT spokesman Seth Solomonow defended the bike-share locations as the result of thousands of public suggestions taken across 400 meetings citywide: “The locations are the result of this very public process, the most extensive of any transportation project in city history.”

Share this Story:

,

← 
Newer Comments  →
  • http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=631255472 Quinn Raymond

    We are thrilled to have the bike share coming to Brooklyn Heights.

  • GHB

    Too bad Gerry’s not here to pipe in…

  • Wiley E.

    Sure, rent 29 bikes on the Promenade so tourists can run everybody down. Great idea. And close LICH so there isn’t a hospital nearby. Another great idea. What’s next? Giving away the public libraries to wealthy private developers (who don’t pay taxes), and then not building any new schools for the new residents? Brilliant. Then what’s next? More Condos and fewer supermarkets? I guess so.

  • Wiley E.

    Correction. 23 promenade bikes. 39 Montague Street spots.

  • BHB reader

    When’s the last time a cyclist killed a pedestrian? 2009. When’s the last time a driver killed a pedestrian? Today.

    And remember, it was a driver who killed Martha Atwater ON THE SIDEWALK. Let’s not be hysterical over a bike share program that has proven to be very safe in cities the world over.

  • Boerum Bill

    When’s PuppyShare coming goshdarnit?!

  • http://twitter.com/rimler marshasrimler

    great..now lets figure out how to save our library

  • GHB

    I don’t have a problem with the bike share, as long as they’re not ridden on the Promenade. Maybe using spikes will deter riding (and walking barefoot) on the Promenade

  • Rick

    I think the bike program is a good idea.

    But I agree, putting a bike dock on the Promenade is stupid.
    It will be viewed as an invitation to ride there. And even if they put a sign on the dock, it will probably be missed by many.

    And yes, don’t close LICH!

  • MonroeOrange

    The Bike Docking station, being on the promenade, I do agree with (if that is indeed what happens), but the loss of parking is ridicoulous…if they want to take parking away, they better take a metered spot (but we all know that wouldn’t happen). However, i do think there is a danger associated with this bike program, which is a tourist riding a bike while site seeing around brooklyn heights will probably run into a pedestrian (and im not saying kill a pedestrian but will hurt a pedestrian). Other than that, its seems pretty expensive to actually use the bikes, unlike in Denmark, where the bikes are free or of little cost, these seem designed as a profit maker (like everything else in America).

  • HenryLoL

    This Bike Share is a great idea. The article is wrong — there is not going to be a station ‘on’ the promanade…

  • David on Middagh

    Right—the bike share station was planned for a spot at the head of Middagh on Columbia Heights, outside Squibb Park and near the “Fruit Street Sitting Area”. Which is sort of Promenade Extension, but not actually down there.

  • Jorale-man

    I’m looking forward to having the convenience of the bike stations in the neighborhood. Even though I have my own bike, this could be a useful way to get from point A to point B quickly if I’m out and about. Incidentally, odd how someone would argue bike spaces would “cheapen” a neighborhood but auto parking spaces wouldn’t.

  • Wiley E.

    Yeah, puppies are chick magnets. Spring is here. Bow wow.

  • Heights Observer

    BHB reader please note that Wiley E. did not mention a bike “killing” someone. Instead he said “run somebody down” and that happens ALL THE TIME and on a daily basis. I walk in this city three or more hours a day and have seen it way too often. Does the city even bother to keep statistics on these accidents? It happens because many cyclists (most, but not all) do not adhere to traffic laws, which they perceive only to apply to autos and pedestrians, in other words, everyone else but them. They go through red lights, ride on the sidewalk, dis-obey “no bicycling” signs, fail to yield to pedestrians, ride the wrong way down streets and shout the “f”word to everyone else, it seems, but their fellow bikers.

    Bike riders are FAR more dangerous than they or our useless transportation commissioner are willing to admit. If all “encounters” were reported and proper statistics were kept, it would bear this out.

  • HenryLoL

    WHY? There is nothing to save. Besides, we are going to have a smaller, nicer, and more manageable library in the new building — and a more active and alive Cadman Plaza West. If you live in The Heights, you should be celebrating this!

  • carlotta

    I live in the Heights and I certainly don’t ‘celebrate’ another high rise condo with a small library so that a developer can make millions. Why do we need a more lively Cadman Plaza West??? Buses and auto traffic are ‘lively’ enough for any neighborhood.

  • Gerry

    We have 3 bikes one tricycle and two small two-wheelers that have training wheels on them. I had to keep them locked up under the stoop. Here in Fairfeild the bikes are in one of the garages. Our children ride safely up and down and around the driveway. FYI Brooklyn Heights, NYC are not great places for bike riding it is dangerous.

  • Hicks St Guy

    if it’s in Brooklyn Heights, many residents will be against it, before they even think about it. bike share will be the best thing that could happen to the neighborhood & the city.

  • MonroeOrange

    This isn’t something people are against for the sake of ‘we like being against everything’, which of course we do!….I just dont see the logic behind this program from a financial aspect for locals or tourists. It cost $100 for an annual subsrciption (what tourist is paying that?), and if you’re a local, you can buy a bike for less than $100 on craigslist. This isn’t the same type of program used in europe, where it is successful. This is a bank running a share a bike program. I just don’t think it will be successful.

  • Hicks St Guy

    did you notice $9.95 per day?

  • Reggie

    I like the PuppyShare concept. Like a bicycle, I don’t need one all the time and have no interest in maintenance and storage. I would gladly pay $100 a year to snuggle with a canine friend when and where it suits me.

  • MonroeOrange

    thanks for correcting…i didn’t notice that..i thought it was zip car like…in that case, it may work…but i do think, you will have lots of vandalism, tires popped, chains cut, etc…and before you say, im thinking of the negative, i’ve had both of those things happen to my bike when parked on the street in Bh…

    And on the bright side, my dog has another thing to pee on! ;)

  • Hicks St Guy

    It works in London, I witnessed it in Barcelona, and it is something whose time has come. your dog and you are not nice.

  • MonroeOrange

    love that spring is upon is…bc my dog and i enjoy walking up and down hick st, peeing on every tree…he enjoys it, almost as much as i do…ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh…relief

  • MonroeOrange

    i rode around BH everyday as a kid, im ok Gerry..its called being a new yorker…something you would know little about

  • Gerry

    NYC is a dangerous place to ride a bike. We would not let our children ride bikes in Brooklyn Heights.
    We had supervised them at the end of Remsen Street by the Promenade and never took our eye off of them. Your mother/father had a screw loose to let a kid ride a bike around Brooklyn Heights. This is not a good idea. Good thing for your parents that being dumb is not illegal!

  • ltap917

    So a cyclist has to actually kill someone before it becomes an issue? My husband got hit by a bike on the sidewalk at MetroTech. He never knew what hit him. A few weeks later he was still in pain and ended up having x-rays at the hospital.
    I have osteoporosis and I am also on an anti-coagulant possibly for life. I could get hit by a cyclist, get up, go about my life thinking all was OK, then die of another blot clot in the near future.
    Younger people never think about how the older generation feels about cyclists who do not follow the rules. I am terrified of being hit by a cyclist. More so than being hit by a car as cars usually, but not always, stay in the street. Unlike bike riders who think they can ride their bikes anywhere and get away with it. And, they do.

  • HenryLoL

    Becasue it is desolate – devoid of any human – at night and the avenue is not connected to the rest of the Heights and should be. Why are you against developers making money? Who cares?? The current library is a HOLE. Homeless pee in the staircase… It’s too large to manage and does not serve the Heights well. CHANGE IS GOOD, Carlotta. Embrace.

  • MonroeOrange

    my parents were far from dumb…and the one thing they taught me was to not speak poorly about other people’s parents. Im not sure how, you can sit on your wannabe elitist high horse and call people’s parents dumb or any name. Im hoping your raising your kids better than that, but i doubt it.

    I was born and raised in nyc, and rode a bike everyday around BH, we used common sense, something you obviously don’t have. I would like an apology from you immediately. I would think otherwise, this is in violation of the BHB TOS…homer care to weigh in on this pariah of neighbor we all have?

←  
Newer Comments  →