When then-Mayor Michael Bloomberg introduced his new initiative to promote bike-riding in the city, he was emphatic about what it meant for taxpayers.
“Citi Bike won’t require any city or federal tax subsidy to operate the system,” he said. “I think that bears repeating. We are getting an entirely new transportation network without spending any taxpayer money. Who thought that can be done?”
Scarcely a year after the program was launched, it’s looking more like a case of bait-and-switch.
The privately funded program needs an infusion of tens of millions of dollars just to stay afloat. And that doesn’t include the $1 million in lost parking revenue that the city is now asking the bike-sharing program to pick up. Turns out, it’s part of the contract’s fine print.
If all this weren’t trouble enough, some of the roughly 130 Citi Bike employees are now saying they want to unionize.
Inevitably, the financial woes are leading some to argue the city should drop the parking payback from the contract and cut Citi Bike a break. That, of course, would amount to a public subsidy — exactly what Bloomberg assured us we wouldn’t have.
The idea now being promoted is that the bikes are simply another form of public transportation. And just as we underwrite buses and subways, we ought to bow to reality and subsidize the bicycles.
That’s a reasonable argument. Except for one thing: It wasn’t the deal we were sold. When Citi Bike was imposed on the city, perhaps the main selling point was that it wouldn’t cost taxpayers a dime. Alta Bicycle Share, the company that runs Citi Bike, freely signed that contract.
The good news is that Mayor de Blasio has stuck to the no-city-money line. If the city wants a bike program as public transport, let’s have full hearings on what that will cost.
If Citi Bike brings as many benefits as its advocates claim, let it get the revenue it needs from the people who are enjoying that benefit: the cyclists, not the taxpayers.