(Posted this here on Sunday night then moved it over to the A&S forum, but seeing we have traffic here now, I'm moving it back to this forum where it should belong. Sorry for the stupid "inconvenience", but I really want to share experience.
)
Today (Sunday) I took a visiting relative for a ride in Manhattan, him on Citi bike, me on my own bike. Great experience!
We accessed the Citi bike at least 7 times throughout the day. The first kiosk we went to had a blank screen, not working. At another station, the only bike there couldn't be undocked. Otherwise, it's be a simple process. The only nuisance (and a
big nuisance for tourists) is having to watch the time and rush to find a station before 30 minutes ran out. Our city tour today was not as relaxed because of this.
Hope they add more stations along popular bike paths such as the East River Greenway and Hudson Greenway. At one station near the Battery Park there was a long line waiting, with some folks really s-l-o-w to go through the buttons to get their first pass. We waited for what must have been at least 15 minutes, almost giving up as we might be late to a dinner invitation.
I highly suggest putting more than 1 kiosks at the stations that are at popular locations, to reduce waiting lines.
Another suggestion is to
raise the height of the Citi bike sign at each station, so that they can be
visible from afar for those looking for them. Several times today I was looking around to find a station when the station was only steps away, and I failed to see it.
Observations:
a) If it's a fine weather weekend and a station is full of bikes, likely the kiosk is out of order.
b) If there is only one bike left at a station, that bike may have some problem--maybe can't be undocked.