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.”
