The Great CitiBike Midtown Hollowing Out

The great early CitiBike rage-out appears to have largely subsided by now. Besides the obvious angry sorts (people who hate parking spaces disappearing, people who hate being run down by Euros on enormous bikes, and people who hate watching tourists grapple with difficult instructions), one man suggests: people were angry because it’s basically cheating. There is a truth to this, as you know if you have wheeled your way to a meeting on-time that a cab and the seemingly often summer-busted subway would have made you late for!

Really the great CitiBike experiment has been… so-so. The software sucks, the machinery is hateful, the “real” bikers hate you because they assume you don’t know how to bike, and don’t forget the tickets — and then there’s the Great Midtown Hollowing Out. Each day, there are some overall trending movements. The tourists are noise in the system of the signal of commuters and resident users. Certainly, by end of the day, bikes disappear from the center of Manhattan toward the edges. And then you are left with empty forlorn sweaty racks, as the picture in Herald Square yesterday evening shows. And where are the bikes now? They are uptown and downtown — but also they have migrated inward for the afternoon. Later, the map will hollow out again.