reflection on city-bike by yasir mohamed

Empty cit-bike stations at lower Manhattan

I will share with you my first cit-bike experience; on September 25 at 7:20am I arrived at Bowling Green subway station,  and right away started looking for a Citi- bike, at citi-bike's docking located at lower Manhattan. However, this Broadway Ave docking station at financial district was empty. Also, there were no bikes available at the South Ferry docks, where I had been waiting for about 20 minutes. Then, I started looking for nearby citi-bike docks; the closest dock was at Church Ave. The plan has only 6000 bikes available for all city residents, and doesn’t accept cash. So, city riders who don’t have a bank card or credit card, he/she cannot ride a Citi- bike. I spoke to two people who were waiting for a bike like me, and they were looking for other options, like to rent a bike from any bike rental store available at lower Manhattan. As we studied in this course sustainable transportation should be economical and available for everyone. The NYC Citi- bike plan in its article five made weight limits one of the plan's hidden biases. Cit-bike plan is consider being a great step towards sustainable transportation. However, at this time, the plan is under NYC comptroller reviewing plans performance. I think weight limits more likely going to be the plan key failure; weight should not prevent heavy weight riders from renting a Citi-bike. My suggestion is that, plan should make urban city biking attractive option for city residents, and not making heavier riders worried that the plan's bike wouldn't carry their weight, or make any riders feel uncomfortable to ride.  Sustainable transportation goals is a citizen health and a clean environment, so when people see a heavy person on a bike, such an act would encourage others to ride bikes, and as a result we will have healthy citizen. Some advantage of Citi- bike, the plan is more flexible, because it doesn’t require riders to wear sporty biking clothes made of spandex or sweat fabric. Still the cit-bike is not sustainable enough, because a service is not available for heavy people. I spoke to a lot of people trying to find any options to solve weight issue. I found that, most normal bikes are rated to carry a total of 220-300 lbs, but some old bikes are strong enough to carry all weights. I visited the bike shop near me, and I asked the sales man about bike’s carrying capacity, the answer was that:  Heavy duty bike come up with high carrying capacity, some bikes are really strong enough to carry anybody, and they made up to carry over 500 lb / 250 kg, usually use for exercising, and for losing weight, based on the person needs. Such bikes can be another possible solution, and this option can be the Citi bike goal.

Cit-bike foreign language bank

Above photo is showing the cit-bike ability of using foreign language, which is one of the advantages of the cit-bike plan.

My biking trip starts at W 79^th St near Boat Basin cafe, I was biking through new improved near water bike’s path heading south east; and then turn left on West End Ave. This new wide green bike way is a result of the city new transportation efforts that aims to optimize the park and introduce sustainable transportation to the city. The bike ways is expanding along the Hudson River banks; I was biking freely enjoying breath taking and parks views, seeing all the attractions the river park has to offer. The most attracting things I sow on my biking trip at River Park, is when I passed many landmarks like Grant's tomb, I end up my biking trip at the conserved lighthouse at Fort Washington Park under GWB. Bath rooms are available in river Park, all the way  to the end I sow bikers enjoy the river breath and its beautiful seen. The city’s efforts made biking easy and healthy way of public transportation.