Shocking new report: Tourists terrified to bike NYC's streets

biking nyc — You would be too if you ever saw one of NYC’s vicious bike bears take someone’s head clean off with one swipe. via Flickr user Michael Mandeberg

When it comes to the mean streets of New York City, we all know that the asphalt is harder than anywhere on Earth, and that our drivers are blinder and meaner than anywhere else. So it was a little baffling that we built a bike sharing service around the idea that tourists would use it, yet here we are, and they’re not using it. Why don’t they use it? According to a new poll, it turns out they’re all terrified of the idea of biking on our streets.

The poll was commissioned by the website Spinlister, and aside from asking New Yorkers what they thought about Citi Bike (under 30% are “Very satisfied” with it) and where they’d like to bike in New York City (a plurality of just over 30% choose Brooklyn as number one), 1114 US adults were asked to rank the cities they’d most like to see on a bike.

spinlister

So yeah, just 11% of tourists would want to bike the streets of New York. True, Chicago and Philly are more terrifying apparently, but how are we behind San Francisco and Washington, DC? Let’s remember that San Francisco is nothing but goddamn hills and in Washington, DC the local columnists thirst for bicycling blood.

Still, if Citi Bike is going to survive, biking in New York will have to be seen as more tourist-friendly. Which is why we’re proud to announce our new position as Unofficial NYC Biking Ambassadors. Our pitch is simple: Don’t be such a goddamn baby, just get on a bike, you’ll probably get around faster. Just gonna yell that at people with fanny packs and people who stop to pose with Times Square Elmos, so you can think us when NYC is viewed as the place the largest amount of people want to see on a bike.