Hasta La Ideas

Photo via Jonathan Maus / BikePortland

Hurricane Sandy was unimaginable in almost every way, beyond the scope of half a weekend’s worth of preparedness, and New York City is still dusting itself off from the storm even as another system dusts the city with a fresh coat of miserable weather. As the major media duly noted during the days following the storm, the hurricane made an emphatic case for alternative transportation, but I’m surprised that no one has mentioned the fact that New York City was supposed to get a shiny new fleet of public bikes by this past summer, only to see the scheduled launch pushed back to fall and now March 2013. An August press release cites technical issues as the culprit (Streetsblog posted additional clarification from Mayor Bloomberg):

NYCBS continues work to conclude manufacture and testing of the high-performance software necessary to operate the new system, which is being tailored for New York City. The system uses new solar power arrays and circuit boards, and engineers will continue to thoroughly test data communications, power management and payment systems to ensure overall system performance. Following the March launch, work will continue to expand the system to 10,000 bikes, covering parts of Manhattan and from Long Island City to parts of Brooklyn.

Those initial 7,000 bikes would certainly have been put to good use last week—assuming, of course, that the technology would make it through the storm (or better yet, the system could release all the bikes in case of catastrophe). I’d bet good money that any bikeshare availability at all would have been an unmatched opportunity for goodwill and good press, and its a shame that we may never know the hypothetical social impact of public bicycles in a time of crisis (knock on wood).

Photo via Jonathan Maus / BikePortland

Indeed, the semi-anticipated lack of public transit sparked a new (or perhaps inevitable) interest cycling like a candle in a blackout: the extended service interruption left a void that was physically flooded with water and metaphorically filled with cyclists. In fact, on my commute home yesterday, another diehard struck up a conversation as we passed newbies in a broad bike lane, wondering aloud if there seemed to be more cyclists out lately. We agreed that the perceived uptick—bike lanes below 14th St seemed to be almost continuously in use over the past week—was a sure sign that many unsung New Yorkers preferred pedal-power to other less reliable (and only nominally more comfortable) modes of transportation.

As for the crisis itself, web-vid whiz Casey Neistat saw fit to venture into the dark heart of the storm on two wheels (he’s a known advocate of the impractical daredevil activity known as riding a bike). Fastco Create has provided more background information on the much-circulated video (following the original Gizmodo post), as well as an update on Neistat’s efforts since then:

Neistat is a competitive endurance athlete and his younger brother, Dan, is a U.S. Air Force C-17 pilot, [so] the two had inclement weather gear and other equipment ready to go.

“We were donning the most appropriate safety gear we could possibly pull together, and we both have training,” Neistat says of the dangerous excursion he took with his brother, who helped film the video. “But at the same time, we were kind of like, ‘Fuck it, we’re here: Let’s make sure we capture things that otherwise might go unseen.'”

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