Originally Posted by
noglider
Yes, and that is what I'm responding to. I'd like DeBlasio to be realistic and unprejudiced. By not offering a subsidy to the bike share, he is treating it worse than all other forms of transit.
He's been perceived as anti-bike, but he doesn't want to play that up now, so he is trying to be quiet on the whole thing. It's not working for me.
I'm unaware of any subsidies for Taxis, or for private vehicles of all kinds. In fact cars are heavily taxed via parking lot taxes. Likewise, no shoe leather subsidy so walkers are on their own.
The economics of bike shares are very favorable, and they do get a significant subsidy in the form of free storage/docking space, so there's absolutely no reason this can't be priced correctly and paid for by user members, with some help from paid advertising. Given the comparative cost per trip, the operators should be able to charge enough to recover capital and operating costs and make a profit.