The Bike Share Program is here,The Bike Share Program is here

Last Updated on September 25, 2017 by Lawrence Berezin

Have you spotted the metal bike share racks yet?

Who among us was “young” enough to view the absolutely hilarious 1966 satirical comedy, “The Russians are coming, the Russians are coming?” A Russian submarine accidentally ran aground in a small fishing village in Martha’s Vineyard. As the movie unfolds, we see the reactions of the various factions of the town. Can you guess the ending?

The NYC driving community was alerted by the media and politicians in 2011 that a bike share program, making 10,000 bicycles available throughout Gotham City, was coming in the Spring of 2012. The bike share program has finally arrived:

“The city’s long-anticipated bike share program is scheduled to make its début in May [2013], allowing New Yorkers to pick up and deposit rental bikes at hundreds of locations, most of them, so far, in some of the wealthiest neighborhoods. Anyone waking up on a Sunday morning in TriBeCa, finding nothing in her refrigerator and hankering to go to Smorgasburg in Dumbo, Brooklyn, for instance, will now be able to do that with relative ease.” [via NY Times].

Can you imagine the reactions of Gotham’s town folks?

The bike share program has ignited fury among the various factions of Gotham City

You can’t tell your anti-bike share coalition without a scorecard. Here are just a few:

• The street vendors in lower Manhattan because the racks installed on Broadway and Liberty Street threaten to displace their food carts and force them to move
• Churches in Brooklyn because the bike racks will eliminate parking spaces for churchgoers
• Older people who depend upon cars to navigate NYC are worried about the elimination of parking spaces
• Pedestrians are concerned that bike stations will make it more difficult to circumnavigate the five boroughs
• The fire department is concerned about bike stations making it difficult to reach abutting buildings with ladders in case of fire
• Brooklynites are against corporate branding on landmark blocks (Citibank sponsors the program and logos are prominently displayed on bike stations)
• Civilians complained that kiosks create unsafe traffic conditions, increase double parking, decrease visibility, and so on
• The Sanitation Department is worried about dirty streets

Are you ready to rumble or become a founding member of the bike share program?

The total cost of a yearly membership is $103.43 including tax.

Commentary

I am an unrelenting advocate for the driving public. I hate unjust parking tickets, and any bad behavior directed at my community. But, bicycles and other alternative means of transportation are here to stay in Gotham City and other metropolises across our wonderful country. Can we learn to co-exist with the Russians? The small village in Martha’s Vineyard did.