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.
The guy at the CitiBike table also told us that since one company, Alta, makes all the bikes for the bike share programs in other cities such as Boston and Washington D.C., it has a large workload to fill. And all the parts are custom-made to discourage stealing, which also adds to the delay.
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I know why it's delayed, but I am sworn to secrecy. I'm sure they'll tell the public a decent excuse but I know it's way, way sillier.
BEEZY! Don't do this to us. Your Brokelyn commenting privileges will come under disciplinary review unless you give us a teeny tiny hint. Is it:
A) A spelling error on the bikes
B) They ran out of blue paint
C) Citibank's check bounced
D) Someone stole them all
E) There are no red ribbons currently available to cut on launch day
F) Marty and Mike can't synch their schedules