Author: fish1964

In less than 4 weeks.

Tomorrow NYC CitiBike will hit one million miles ridden in less than a month.

There have been mild glitches, major complaints, but overall I don’t see how this is anything but a rousing success.

This week my daughter Danielle is in a summer art camp. We scooter there together in the morning, so I’m not using CitiBike. Which has given me an interesting view into which is better, biking or scootering.

In general, biking is the clear winner. Faster and more comfortable.

But Brooklyn, and Dumbo in particular, have some characteristics that make biking tricky. Lots of one way streets, cobblestone and some hairy intersections traffic-wise. The advantage of the scooter is that you can ride in a bike lane when that is convenient, or move to the sidewalk when that is more convenient. I’ll also go the wrong way on a one way street when that is more convenient (not like I can hurt anyone with my scooter).

So I was amused to see this article in Gothamist, “In Defense of Cyclist Salmoning”. I didn’t even realize riding a bike the wrong way on a one way street had a name. The examples he gives are my exact issues riding to and from work. Point A in this map is the CitiBike rack right outside my office.

This one, right behind my office, is an even better example. There is no biker on the planet who goes from A to B legally in this case:

And while I rarely have to get to this point B, I often scooter that exact route through the park. But I don’t bike it which forces me several blocks out of my way.

So sometimes scootering is more convenient than biking.

I’m clearly fascinated by NYC CitiBike program. I love that they publish daily stats (via RSS, even better). But I have no frame of reference. Is 20,000 rides in a day a lot? Sounds like a lot. But compared to what.

So I went on a Google quest for other city bike share stats. Here are some:

Washington DC:

In its first seven months of operation, Capital Bikeshare users made 330,000 trips. (NYC has that amount in less than a month)

London:

Latest monthly stats are 750K rides in a month. That’s clearly a lot. Taking today’s NYC numbers (a weekday, weekends are much higher) and doing the math, NYC should have 650K rides in a month. So we are close but have some catching up to do.

Paris:

Off the charts. 27 million rides in the first year.

Given the rapid growth of CitiBike in the first 20 days, I’d predict NYC passes London. But no way we come close to Paris.

Here’s a cool site with bike share maps for cities around the world.

And here’s a video that compares the pain is the ass factor of various ways of commuting in NYC (the conclusion is actually the opposite of the title):

I just spent a couple of days in the Kings County (Brooklyn) court system, fulfilling my civic duty as a potential juror.

I have mixed feelings about jury duty. On one side, the thought of spending a week or two sitting on a trial and not working is just painful. I’d end up working late nights every day just to stay afloat.

But the other side does believe that a jury system is the best system we are likely to come up with, and I would probably be a good juror.

What kills me is that the legal system is so……damn…….slow.

I get it, the process is optimized for the judges and the lawyers, so wasting jurors’ time is a feature not a bug. But it’s painful.

At least in the main waiting area there is now WiFi. But once you get called up as a potential juror you are in a no WiFi and fairly dead 4G zone. And they would often dismiss us for “15 minutes”. Not enough time to break out the laptop. But sometimes 15 means 15 and sometimes 15 means 50. I probably should have just read a book, trying to do work was pretty unproductive.

We had a criminal case where the lawyers were being very careful with jury selection. So a pool of 60 potential jurors was not enough to produce a full jury. By the afternoon of day 2 I had been rejected as a juror and was dismissed. They were up to 8 jurors at that point.

Anyway, I’m now done. And in the County of Kings (I love saying it that way) that means I don’t have to do it again for at least 8 years. Go Brooklyn.

The WiFi is spotty on the 20th floor, but the view is pretty good…

(One World Trade in the distance on the left)

I have jury duty this week (more on that later) and I needed to swing by my office before going to court So I grab a CitiBike, pretty much without looking, adjust the seat and hop on. My left foot is pushing air.

I look down, the bike is missing a pedal. Kind of a problem.

That’s the first bike maintenance issue I’ve hit. But it was easily resolved. I put the bike back in the rack, press the Repair button, and grab another bike.

I can’t imagine how much maintenance these bikes and the racks must need. It would be very interesting to see cost/revenue stats, but I’m sure the city won’t be providing them.

They do provide mileage stats. Over 790,000 miles traveled so far.

Never a dull moment in Dumbo. Under the archway* they are doing “Pop-Up Piano Concerts”.

The web page doesn’t list who is playing today, but it was a pretty good Dixieland band:

Combined with food from the Brooklyn Flea, this made for a very nice lunch.

* DUMBO stands for down under the Manhattan Bridge Overpass – so this is the archway under the bridge overpass.