I've wondered if there is some way Citibikes can "crowdsource" the rebalancing.

Suppose they offered to pay $X to ride a bike from a crowded station to an empty station .

The way it might work is, their software identifies a need to have fewer bikes at stations A B C and more at stations X Y Z and that it is worth $X to them; they notify you of this offer, either via the Citibikes smartphone app or via text; "you" being Citibike users who have opted-in to these offers; if it is worth your time, you take a bike from station C and ride it to station Y and $X is paid to the credit card you have on file. $X would be dynamic - if they have a rebalancer en route anyway, X might be low or zero, but if no rebalancer is going to be available for hours and the need is great, then X would be higher.

Would this work? What would X have to be, to motivate someone to ride a bike from, say, mid-town to west side at 9 am, after the first wave of commuters has emptied the west side stations and filled the mid-town stations? And would that X be low enough to actually reduce Citibike's rebalancing costs? I have previously guesstimated it might cost them $1-2 to rebalance a bike, if you include fully loaded cost of the rebalancer, his truck or bike, benefits and payroll fees/taxes.