Mesmerizing! Citi Bikes Arrive

Here it is: A bike-share station with bikes, and it’s not a photo shoot. A reader sent this shot of Foley Square across from the courts this morning.

Update: More than 850 of the 6,000 bikes are in the stations as of this morning, according to NYC DOT.

The blue bikes are a great conversation starter. After a friend of the blog alerted me to the newly docked bikes at Prince and MacDougal last night, I headed over and immediately started chatting with an older couple ogling the bikes about what sort of trips bike-share would be good for. We agreed: The closest analogy is that you’d use it like a cab.

This might be the first photograph ever taken of Citi Bikes waiting to be used. Photo: ##https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10200452755776201&l=b177199e25##Kim Wiley-Schwartz##

Here’s another one at Barrow and Hudson, via @BrooklynSpoke:

ALSO ON STREETSBLOG

STREETSBLOG USA

Venture-Financed Bike-Share Off to a Hot Start in Seattle

By Angie Schmitt |
There are plenty of questions about whether this new bike-share business model, which is backed by Silicon Valley-style venture capital, will have legs. Will the companies be able to maintain safe bikes, provide good service, and stay financially viable in the long run? It’s too soon to say. But in the early going, they are proving that plenty of people will use bike-share in a city where it previously flopped, reports Tom Fucoloro at Seattle Bike Blog.