Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: bicycling, bike share, bikeshare, Citi, Felix Salmon, New York City, NYC bikeshare, The Art of Urban Cycling, transportation, urban cycling
He noticed, it’s kind of expensive.
The first trip you take, on one of the new New York bikes, will cost you at least $10, and possibly as much as $95. Cab rides don’t cost much more than that, and you can fit four people in a cab. Experienced urban cyclists like me will definitely cough up the $95, even if that hurts a little, because we know how convenient it can be to be able to take one-way bike trips in Manhattan, especially if it’s going to rain later, or if you don’t like biking back in the dark, or if you got in to work on the subway but then just need to go a mile or so to your lunch meeting.
But the great promise of the bikeshare scheme is that it will get people onto bikes who have never biked before — people who are generally very nervous about biking at all on busy urban streets. Those people are going to want to try before they buy, and the $10 cost of a trial one-day membership is high enough to give them a good excuse not to bother.
http://blogs.reuters.com/felix-salmon/2012/05/15/bikeshare-pricing-charts-of-the-day/