Look at this brownshirt. Pinkshirt. WHATEVER, GIVE BACK THE PARKING

CitiBike: Nazi-Muslim plot? Autocratic government run amok? Or just, y’know, some bikes, that everyone can use? The Daily Show was has occasionally checked in with things that are relevant to our interests wanted to talk to the citizens of New York City about bike share, and what did they find? Well sure there was some cherry-picking going on, but mostly they found petulant old white people. And a couple bad-asses from Bed-Stuy. (more…)

Freedom’s just another word for ending the tyranny of walking

Despite the fact that the public is foaming at the mouth to either ride CitiBikes or destroy people riding them, the city has been exceptionally tight-lipped about when the program will actually start. But, a close reading of a Crain’s article reveals that they may have settled on Memorial Day. (more…)

This picture was in May, now a year before bike share will actually launch.

This was supposed to be the summer of bike share, but the only bike sharing we saw was some guy on my block who decided he wanted to “share” the front wheel of my bike, and never return it. Mayor Booo-mberg said today that what will eventually be the country’s largest bike share program now won’t roll out until spring 2013 (it was originally supposed to be this July) at the earliest, due to unspecified “software issues.” And as we know, a bike is nothing without its software. So what to do until then? Get some damn wheels of your own, obvs. Here’s some options to help fill the void, from free bike rentals to cheap ones for sale. (more…)

You can see these demo stations around the city, but still no bike stations.

The Citi Bike bike share program has been building up its buzz campaign for months now, as you may have noticed them outside events such as the Brooklyn Flea just about every weekend. So we asked one of the reps at the Flea on Saturday: what gives with the ambiguous July launch date? He told us the launch isn’t going to happen until at least August now. The manufacturer of the program’s custom-made bikes has fallen behind schedule and the city only has about half of the bikes it needs to launch the first phase of the program in the initial 600 stations. Streets Blog today points us to Twitter messages confirming the program is still weeks away from launching. So we wait and wait, because even that Citi Bank sponsorship money wasn’t enough to get them in on time. (more…)

While we’re all waiting for the city’s bike share program to launch (still no official date, btw), here’s another alternative. Spinlister is a company that basically takes the Airbnb model and applies it to bikes: you search on the site for a bike near you and see what people are willing to let you use it for. And if you’ve got an extra set of wheels you don’t use that much, you can put it on Spinlister to make some cash off it, instead of letting it rot tied to your front gate. (more…)

Boris Johnson rides a bike, via the Guardian.

London’s Mayor Boris Johnson (who looks … quite British) sat down for an interview with WNYC’s Leonard Lopate today and had this to say about NYC’s largest-in-the-world bike share program, launching in July. Johnson then described how London’s bikeshare program has transformed street life in Great Britain’s capital city, and what New Yorkers should brace for.

Johnson: I think drivers have got to learn to recognize they are going to find bikes on the streets. It’s just a fact of life, and it will civilize the place. It will improve the atmosphere. There’s nothing more immediately redolent of a village than loads of people wobbling around on bicycles.

A village?? Is that like some kind of fancy suburb, Boris?

You'll get bike share stations past Atlantic. Just not this year.

The release of today’s map showing the locations of the stations for NYC’s huge bike share launch this summer stirred up a lot of anger. It basically showed that no neighborhoods south of Atlantic Avenue, including — how dare they! — Park Slope and Prospect Park — would get to be a part of the program. We called DOT to check into this and it turns out today’s release was just the first wave of station announcements. Some 180 additional stations are still planned for areas of Park Slope, Cobble Hill, Crown Heights and Prospect Heights (along with parts of Manhattan and Queens) … but not until next spring. A DOT spokesman told us the city will continue to work with the community to nail down exact station locations, but if you were hoping to bike share your way down to Prospect Park this summer, you’re out of luck. We asked the spokesman why these were chosen to roll out first; if we get an answer today, we’ll update this post, so stay tuned.