NYC as bike innovation epicenter.
While CitiBike gets most of the good (and bad) attention, New York City is becoming the testing ground for a variety of human-powered transportation. At last count:
- Citibike – Uses smart-dock technology. Has 5,500-6,000 bikes 59th Street south and part of Brooklyn. Citibike is the largest bike fleet in the nation. Citibike is based on the 2007 Velib model where bikes are parked in docking stations.
- Bike and Roll – Full service bike rental. Has operated profitably in New York City for seven years. Its 2,000+ bike fleet was the largest in the nation prior to CitiBike. Bike and Roll operates eleven hubs in Manhattan, Brooklyn and New Jersey.
- Social Bicycles (SoBi) – Uses advanced smart-lock technology. Has super-smart financial backers. Has had its technology which jettisons the dock used by Citibike covered in the Wall Street Journal and the New York Times. Social Bicycles has partnered with Bike and Roll (and E3Think) with what may be the future bikeshare model in Hoboken.
- Zagster – Another form of smart-lock technology (but different from SoBi’s), Zagster recently implemented a program at Yale University. whereas SoBi works just like Citibike, Zagster focuses in on smaller, closed systems. As covered in the Times, Zagster recently rolled out a program with Related for residential properties.
- Bike-the-Skyline – The Hoboken pilot (which includes Bike and Roll and Social Bicycles) is part of a larger framework designed to encourage a bike-boat-bike system on both sides of the Hudson River.
On top of all this, New York is already home to Worksman Cycles in Ozone Park, Queens. Worksman is one of the longest continuing bike manufacturers in the US. Worksman is proof that bicycle manufacturing is possible in urban markets.
[Zagster] is an interesting “value add” that can be done sans government and could be a great new revenue stream for an event company ~ event expert Jim Cohen
The NYC landscape.
Bike the Skyline map showing existing Bike and Roll nodes as well as the Citibike system.