Rough ride for city’s bike-share program

Citi Bike riders may want to clean off their seats before hopping on. Sanitation workers have to toss bags of trash over several share stations, including this one in Greenwich Village. The scene…

I’ve been very curious as to how the NYC bike-share system would work out. As someone who occasionally bikes in NYC, I can say from experience that it is not easy! You really need to know what you’re doing/where you’re going when riding through heavy traffic areas (which lets face it, is 90% of the city). While it may be improving, currently bikes lanes aren’t everywhere and even in places they are, often times people use them as a walking lane or cabs use them to pull over (watch out for opening car doors!).

I assume there would be a bunch of injuries with a bike share system in such a crazy city, and I guess time will tell. Hopefully people are more responsible and careful than I give them credit for. I totally get how this works so well in other cities (in Minneapolis I saw TONS of bike-share stations and bike lanes or streets closed off to just riders/pedestrians- a very bike-friendly city) but NYC is a different story with crazy crowds and reckless drivers.

On my walk to work today I did see a bunch of people riding bikes (including a few bike-share users) so hopefully the program surprises me and works out well (although this article would indicate otherwise) and more bike lanes are created/respected.

Have you tried the bike-share program in NYC or another city? What are your thoughts?