I am thrilled to declare that as of this moment, CityBike, New York's new safe and affordable
24-7 transportation network and the largest bike share program in the country is officially launched.
It's finally here, Memorial Day 2013, the CityBike bike share launch. As you can see, it's
a press bonanza. I've never seen this many cameras, this many people turn out for a press event.
So as you know, street films, we have done more bike share films throughout the world than anybody.
That includes going to Hangzhou in China where they have 50,000 bikes, Paris with the Velib system,
but also here in the United States where we've been to Washington DC and Minneapolis. But
CityBike debuts today, 6,000 bikes out of a plan 10,000, about 300 stations. People are already out
using it. You know, it's a rare thing to see a brand new transportation system become unveiled
right before our eyes. And, you know, we have the A-Train and we have Yellow Cabs and we have the
Staten Island Ferry. And today, CityBike joins the ranks of the transportation icon family in New York
City. Yeah, we just had a whole discussion about how this is a much more space efficient
use of the New York City streets. Just hanging out with friends, running from place to place,
you know, just being free in New York City and able to go across town with little trouble.
Oh, it's great. It's very exciting. It's very exciting. I hope it catches on and I hope they
expand the system as soon as they can. I would supplement my own bike. I would use it if friends
were visiting and then I could use CityBike to lend them my bike. If it was forecast for rain
in the afternoon, but I had to be somewhere, I would ride one of these. Oh, the bike is really
great. It's real sturdy. And you can ride it, you know, I have my skirt on. You could ride it
wearing whatever you're wearing. And it's, you know, really easy to balance on and it rides really
smoothly. Well, I ride my bike to work almost every day, but to get it out of my office in the
middle of the day for appointments is really kind of a pain. I have to think about where I'm riding to.
Can I lock up? Now I won't have to worry about that when I go meet a client or go to an appointment.
Fob, slide it in, pull it out, lift up the seat, and there you go. It drives like a truck. It's a
great bike for the city. But if you're a taxi cab, you want to stay out of the way of these things.
If you hit one, you're out for the day. So easy. And they really thought I'm true. And you could
store the bikes like everywhere. I think it's a great system. You have these strips, you know,
like this thing. So you just pull like here. It's so easy. It's really convenient. Hey,
Street Films fans, you may remember last month we were up on 9th Avenue checking out the new
bike parking protected, protected bike lanes. Anyway, we're ready to go one further. We found
City Bike Bike Share parking protected, protected bike lanes here on Allen Street. Very exciting.
Just another little first here in New York City. A lot of New Yorkers can see themselves using the
system. All the polls we've seen have shown that it enjoys something like 70% popularity.
So we know that this is something that New Yorkers can appreciate. It's going to work out just fine
like in every other city that has bike share. It was a media event for a Kid the Tires demo for
City Bike a couple of weeks ago at Brooklyn Navy Yard. And I showed up and she was there showing
off the bikes. She agreed to do a bike portrait and it was great. It was one of my favorite ones.
I have 1,825 days until I can ride City Bike. And I and I have 2,555 days until I ride City Bike.
