Overall, I have been truly enjoying my Citibike membership. It's perfect for a trip across town, especially if it's not too hot out — if it's really hot and you need to be somewhere where you need to look your best (like a first date or something), it's sometimes better to walk to avoid showing up looking like a huge sweatball. Which brings me to last night. With about 15 minutes to make it to the West Village and a cool evening breeze blowing, Citibike would seem to be an ideal transportation mode. It was — it got me to Perry and Bleecker in good time with barely a schvitz. This would've been great except for the tiny fact that the rack at that spot was completely full. I then biked over to Christopher and Hudson — full. At that point, I had to pull out my phone and find another kiosk — Bank and Hudson. I biked up to it, down the (stupidly uncomfortable) cobblestone street to find one free slot at the kiosk. Hooray! I was still in the safe 5-10 minute late range, and a tad schvitzier than I would like, but good to go. Until the bike wouldn't dock properly. The green light wouldn't go on, no matter what I tried. I was not about to keep biking farther from my destination at that point, so I called Citibike customer service. After a bit of time on hold, the rep took all of my information (key number, rack location, bike number) and she let me leave it where it was. I strode in to the restaurant about 15 – 20 minutes late, sweaty, and pissed off. At the very least, I had a good icebreaker story to start off the evening.
Tag: Citibike
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Rant of the Day: Be a Moron All You Like, But Don’t Put Me in Danger
Yesterday, while biking along the 10th Street bike path between University and 2nd Avenue, I saw two people biking against traffic and one person blow through a red light as a pack of pedestrians started to cross in front of us. Earlier that day, crossing 5th Avenue as a pedestrian, I nearly got hit by a cyclist who didn't stop for his red light. After sunset, I saw a guy cycling the wrong way down a bike path, no helmet, no reflective gear or lights, with headphones in both ears. All of this stupidity and lack of concern for fellow New Yorkers is fairly typical, unfortunately. That said, I also saw some moron drive IN HIS CAR the wrong way down 5th Avenue — while I and other pedestrians yelled at him — in order to make a U-Turn. As we all yelled "wrong way!" all he had to say was "I know." Seriously?!? WHAT IS WRONG WITH PEOPLE!?!?
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I Want to Ride My Bicycle, I Want to Ride My Bike*
I finally dusted off my bike and went for a ride yesterday, which felt great. Given the prevalence of the new Citibike docks all around the city, I've been thinking quite a bit about bike riding lately. I was trained as a very safe rider thanks to the AIDS Ride folks back in 2000, but I'm still not super-thrilled about riding in traffic. I prefer to get over to a bike-friendly area that is blocked to traffic (Central Park, West Side Highway) and ride around there instead of using my bike for commuting. As safe and cautious as I am, I think that drivers are still not accustomed to cyclists and I'd rather avoid them.
That said, they're about to be everywhere. I'm incredibly curious to see how this whole Citibike thing will work. I plan to try it out (with a helmet, of course) and see if it makes me more comfortable using a bike as a mode of transportation rather than a means of exercise. My two big hopes are that 1) drivers will start to get used to and respect cyclists who share the streets, and 2) cyclists will ride safely, respecting traffic laws. The latter is something I don't see as often as I'd like. I constantly see cyclists riding the wrong way down bike lanes, not signaling, blowing through traffic lights, wearing headphones, texting (are you fucking kidding me?!) as they ride, and riding on sidewalks. I truly hope that with an influx of cyclists, this changes, and if not, that cyclists are ticketed accordingly for traffic violations. The sooner we all learn to share the streets safely, the better.
* Thank you, Queen.