Bike-sharing in trouble in NYC

New York City's bike-sharing initiative has a flat tire: It's losing money because it is popular with the wrong kinds of people – low-profit members who buy annual memberships as opposed to high-profit, daily users, according to a detailed report in the Wall Street Journal.

As the story explains, Citi Bike gets no local taxpayer funds, and that's how it should be. The coming (eventually) Philly bike-share program also is built on the premise of no local tax dollars. (In each city, there could be federal taxpayer funds.)

I think bike sharing is a good idea, just like car sharing. Bike sharing, like car sharing, should be a private commercial venture.

I keep hearing that bicycle commuting is the wave of the future. If you truly believe that (I don't) there ought to be many venture capitalists willing to make a killing.

I hope officials from Philadelphia's Office of Transportation and Facilities are paying attention. Let's not repeat New York's mistakes.

It's unlikely we will make the mistake of thinking tourists will flock to bikes. I don't know what the New York planners were thinking. The city has a very well-developed mass transit system (especially subways). Why would a stranger want to bike in the crowded streets? Biking through the Alps is one thing. Biking through Hell's Kitchen is another.

The story has two charts. One shows the increase in annual memberships, month by month. The other shows monthly bike usage – quite high in spring and summer and bottoming out in the cold months.

That's one reason I say bicycling will never be a serious, year-round transportation alternative here. People need transportation even when it rains, or snows, or is bitter cold.

If Philly wants to develop a bike-share program, go ape. Knock yourself out. But don't send the bill from the bicyclist -- who rides and parks for free -- to the already overburdened taxpayer.

I know bicyclists (the few, the young, the brave) don't like hearing that because of their morally superior sense of entitlement ("I'm green, I don't pollute"), but the current number of fulltime bike commuters is miniscule, according to information from the Bicycle Coalition of Greater Philadelphia: In 2000, 3.2 percent of Center City workers and 0.4 percent of Delaware Valley workers biked to work. (SEPTA reports 321 million rides a year over 196 lines.)

If there are any free bucks around (which is unlikely) they ought to be spent on mass transit, which can be used by everyone, every day, in all kinds of weather.