The New York City bicycle-sharing program, Citi Bike, has officially begun. Well, sort of begun, anyway.
The Department of Transportation (DOT) released a map on March 29 showing where the 293 bicycle stations, sponsored by Citibank, will be located.
But since a few are on navy yard property, which is protected by security guards, they are not yet accessible to the general public.
The bicycles at the Navy Yard are only for use by Navy Yard employees and are not allowed to leave the yard, according to a DOT spokesman.
This is to allow tenants and employees of the Brooklyn Navy Yard to try out the bicycles, which is intended to help with "operational training" for the bicycle sharing system.
The Brooklyn Navy Yard is approximately 300 acres, and the stations are spread throughout the area. Navy Yard ID-holders will have free use of the bicycles during the preview period.
The official launch of the bicycle-sharing program is scheduled for May 2013.
The long-delayed sharing system consists of "a fleet of specially designed, heavy duty, very durable bikes that are locked into a network of docking stations listed at regular intervals around a city," according to the New York DOT web site. The bicycles can be rented from and returned to any station.
It's eventually intended to contain 10,000 bicycles at 600 stations, though currently only 293 station locations have been released by the DOT. They will be available 24 hours a day, 365 days a year.
The company that will be operating the system, NYC Bike Share LLC, a subsidiary of Alta Bicycle Share, already operates popular bicycle sharing systems in cities such as London, Boston, Washington, D.C., and Melbourne, Australia. They also plan to expand to Chicago and San Francisco.
This article is copyrighted by Travelers Today, the travel news leader
