Bicycle, Bicycle

When Citibikes first came to New York, I was still living there and I predicted the whole bike sharing thing would die an easy death. I kept thinking, Who, in their right mind, would ride a bike through the streets of New York? Bicycle messengers aside, I thought it was crazy to think a regular person would get a bike at, say 50th and Broadway and ride down to Penn Station. Boy, was I wrong! When I was in New York last week, I was shocked at how many Citibikes I saw in the city and how many people I saw riding those bikes in the city. I fear for my life trying to cross the street in New York. I can't imagine how I'd feel trying to navigate a bike through the city streets, yet I saw one person after another doing just that. Granted, most of the people I saw were young (well, younger than I am) so maybe they had less fear about riding a bike in Manhattan traffic. I was scared just watching these folks.

Here in the Chicago area, we have Divvy bikes that people can rent. It's the same concept as the NY Citibikes. A Divvy bike station was recently placed about a block away from where I live and I was angry because the station took up two street parking places. Street parking in my neighborhood isn't exactly plentiful and there's a lot of multi-family housing in the area. Not everyone has a parking lot or a driveway to park in. I'm in favor of people riding bikes, but I'm against penalizing drivers to accommodate bike riders.