Citi Bike Stations: An Eco-Friendly Solution or a Residential Nightmare?

Imagine your peaceful residential neighborhood suddenly becoming the hub for Citi bike stations. As fascinating as it sounds, it also brings along an array of issues. We take a deep dive into this topic, not only highlighting the problems like zoning law disregard and decreased property values, but also the cumbersome aftermath of riders gallivanting through the streets at night along with a lack of  protective gear. Our Host, OG Goat, an expert in urban planning, joins us to provide some much-needed perspective on how these bike stations, while a boon for eco-friendly travel, may also become a bane for residents. 

Now, picture the future where unmanned bikes and careless riders become the norm. We raise pressing concerns about the potential safety risks and the nuisance they could cause in residential areas. Starting with bikes strewn around to the riders doing a slalom between cars, we discuss the possible chaos. OG Goat lends his voice to the discussion, suggesting ways to ensure the safety of riders and maintain the tranquility of the neighborhoods. This conversation is not just essential, but also eye-opening for anyone intrigued by the impact of Citi bike stations on their communities. Let's navigate the rocky terrain of this discussion together.

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Transcript

OG GOAT: 0:13

Hello everyone, this is OG Goat, your PODHOLFs, and we have another episode we're going to deal with today. This episode is based on city bikes and in my neighborhood, over the past 30 days, within a one mile radius or less, I've seen at least six stations of city bikes popping up, just popping up all over the place. All right, granted. You know I'm all for going green, helping the planet, so forth and so on. I understand sharing the road with bicyclists. It's not a problem. I understand that Streets is not wide enough to make a separate lane just for bicyclists. In areas where they can, they do it Fine. In other areas where they cannot, you know, we shit a rope, no problem. However, we have a. We do have a couple of issues. One issue is if the bicyclist is going to ride recklessly through traffic, weave in and out of traffic on a bicycle, and some of these bikes are now motorized bikes doing 20 and 30 miles an hour. These operators of these bikes, including ones that don't have motors on it, can go 20, 30 miles per hour need to have helmets. Why do you feel, if they're riding in traffic with no protective gear? Nothing, shouldn't they have protective gear, especially when they're weaving in and out of traffic the way they are Now. Okay, they're not supposed to, but they do it. So for that reason, they should have a helmet. Since they can't ride their bicyclists civilized, in a civilized, safe manner, then they need some sort of helmet. Okay, for whatever reason I personally believe it's a monetary reason You're not allowing them to wear helmet because you probably decided that, oh, it would be virtually impossible to get every person to have a helmet. Now you have a million people walking around the streets with helmets and carrying helmets, and it would be a ridiculous, and so forth and so on. Okay, it might pose other problems, all right, so it is what it is. So we're going to go with. They should not have helmets, or they're not required to have helmets. However, under the age of 14, they are required to have helmets, whatever.

OG GOAT: 3:31

Now, moving right along with this ride share and this bicycle things, you have these bicycle stations popping up all over. So I live in an area where the residents have not been complaining as much as some of the other neighborhoods when it comes to putting shelters in the neighborhood. Okay, we're all for helping the people, all right, whatever the case might be Now for the residents of these neighborhoods, or this neighborhood and possibly many others, you have people spending a lot of money on their homes. I could see a husband and wife saying hey, honey, you know, let's get this house here. This is great. We have access to parking right in front of the house, access to parking on the side and we have a driveway. So you know, we have options just in case parking spaces are taken and we can park close or near our own property. This is a great deal for us. We came from a place where parking was extremely scarce. We moved out of Harlem or we moved out of Brooklyn, or wherever we moved from, we could hardly find it. It would take us hours to find a spot. Okay, so this is great. I like this spot.

OG GOAT: 5:06

Now you're paying or purchasing this home for whatever price half a million, eight hundred and fifty thousand, a million dollars. You've made your decision as to why you want the property. You and your wife discussed it and then, five years down the line, you got whatever. A hundred thousand invested in the property. And now, all of a sudden, a company comes in, pulls in and they set up shop right on the street corner next to your house. Wait a minute, hold on now.

OG GOAT: 5:47

This is a residential area. There's certain zoning laws that must be followed in this residential area. How is it a company can just set up shop and do business right next to my home in the residential neighborhood? Credit card machine near the whole nine yards. Something is wrong with that. That is a business. This is a residence. This is zone for a residential neighborhood. It's actually zoning. Zoning law falls under R3X says nothing about commercial, strictly residential. So how is the city allowing them to just set up this ride share credit card accessing machine for bikes right here doing business? If you ask me, I don't know I might be wrong, but that's a business. It may be an unmanned business because there's no employees specifically right there, but there are employees that do combine to maintain the bicycles or maintain the machines or make sure everything is working properly, whatever the case might be. So there are employees associated with this ride share program and this contraption sitting next to my new house that I'm paying for Now.

OG GOAT: 7:30

I'm quite sure it affects the property value some kind of way, because the next person or when I decided to go sell my house, the next person would be like oh, you know what? I don't think I wanna this house per se, honey. It's got a bicycle launch pad right next to it. We're gonna have all types of strangers outside of our house when our kids is playing in the yard, and you know, I just feel a little uncomfortable. People grabbing bikes all hours of the night two in the morning, three in the morning or whatever the case might be. Maybe their car is stuck in a machine and they start kicking. Who knows what kind of situations this contraption is gonna bring down the line, and it's sad that for the sake of money, the city will turn their head and allow this to take place.

OG GOAT: 8:31

Now I'm looking and I'm saying to myself wait a minute now. On top of that, every Thursday I have to move my vehicle because it's alternate side of the street parking. So now my side of the street doesn't get swept because this contraption is sitting next to my house in the street and so my area doesn't get cleaned. So these bicyclists come along and maybe they drop their cups or whatever in the street and it's. You know who's coming by to clean that? Who cleans that area? Am I now responsible for cleaning that? Will the Department of Sanitation come by and give me a ticket because there's trash outside my house, on or near the curb, because if that contraption was not there, I will most certainly get a ticket. So how does this work here? So now, because of whoever this individual is you know, I call in on names, but you can look it up it's owned and operated by Lyft and a gentleman by the name of Mr Green I think it is is the founder of this business. Let me see. His name is Logan Green and John Zimmerman, who owned Lyft and these city bikes, is owned and operated and powered by Lyft.

OG GOAT: 10:12

So we are now I don't know what makes them above the law that they can just put these machines and have disregard for, you know, everybody else who's trying to do the right thing, purchase their home and live a normal, decent life. Come on, this is not fair. And I wonder, do they have one of these bicycles launch pads in front of their house? I'm just wondering about that, you know. In any event, it's not fair. It's not fair to the person that purchased the property. It's not fair to the community, who would like their street swept. It's bad enough. We have to move our car and find a spot. Now you have permanently reduced the number of parking spaces in an already limited area where we have to park. Come on, you're killing us here. Why is it? I don't understand. Why is it okay for you to, you know, to bypass the law? How come the law doesn't affect you? How come this business is allowed to operate in a zoning area that's zoned for residential purposes only? It's not a combination, residential, commercial, it hasn't been rezoned and it's not strictly commercial, it's strictly residential.

OG GOAT: 11:50

So I left links to this on the podcast and you can see it, and I think something is wrong with this and we need to have a little bit more regulation on this. Now, if you wanna put these bikes next to a hotel, that's fine. These people are visiting. If they don't wanna pay a high price of a cab, they can walk out. Boom bang, there's a bicycle. That makes more sense. If you wanna put the bicycles on a busy boulevard near shopping centers or shopping malls, that's fine. It's all commercial property, it's fine.

OG GOAT: 12:37

But to put them in a residential neighborhood is a slap in the face to the people that purchased their property For whatever reason they purchased their property for. And it's like you're not. It's like you said yeah, we could do what we want, and that's not right. So I spoke to the owner of the property and I asked the owner of the property. I said to him I says, let me ask you, did they come to you and ask you, is it okay to put this thing here? I know it's city streets, but it also affects the value of your home because it may deter some people from buying the house because the crowd of people or the number of people or the different types of people that might come here to pick up the bike.

OG GOAT: 13:36

He says no, they did not actually, I guess, sit down with him or send him a formal letter asking if it's okay or would he approve or did he have any issues with it. What they did, though, he did say they sent him a flyer to let him know this is what's about to happen and we were going to put these bikes in the community, as the way he said the letter was addressed. And then he said all of a sudden he may have responded to that and said, yes, it's okay in the community, or he don't mind having the bikes in the community, and he may have responded to that and said yes, but if he didn't respond to it and say yes, he was only notified that the bikes was going to be placed somewhere in the community and maybe if you had any issue, you can call this number. I asked him, can I see the letter? And he says oh, it was a long time ago and he threw the letter out Now. He said he had no idea.

OG GOAT: 14:51

When they said in the community, they meant in front of his house. And the gentleman doesn't like it. So I put up a picture also of this contraption next to this guy's place. And I asked him. I says well, how do you feel about this? Are you? You know? Does it affect, you know? Is it affecting you in any way? He says well, we used to park here. So there you have it. We used to park here, so now he has to park in front of someone else's house. Maybe it's a two-family house, if I'm not mistaken. I remember when the house was for sale, I think I went in it. I think it's a two-family house. But in any event, you know he's not happy about it and it just looks awkward. It doesn't look right and it is a business. There's a credit card machine, transactions can be made and I don't know, call me naive, but with those characteristics it's a business, and a big business at that, and so for that reason, it should be in a commercial area, whether it's a manned or not manned business. It needs to be in a commercial area, and they need to stop modifying these laws. Just because someone is donating money to certain organizations or whatever reason, they are bypassing the laws and not saying unto these people. It's not fair.

OG GOAT: 16:42

As I look up on the website, it says that the Department of Transportation is a partner. How? First of all, the Department of Transportation is a city or state-owned entity. Let me look that up so I'll quote this right Department, because I know tractor trailers run by DOT2 and they run interstate, so it might be a state thing. Let's see government. Let's see Department of Transportation. Okay, it's a government entity. So how is it a government entity becomes a partner with a private business or an individual? Something about that is not right. Something about that is just not right. The government should not have the ability, or an individual should not have the ability, to become a partner with the government. That's to me that's like another way of saying you have a past to do whatever you want. We are cool, and that's wrong. And so this is why, I guess, these people get away with this and something needs to be done. Somebody needs to stop this. These machines need to be put in their rightful places. They need to be in commercial areas. They need to be in areas where you know they will not affect alternate side of the street parking for street cleaning rules and regulations, which is done through Department of what Sanitation, which is, you know, required. We need this. So this is my issue for today.

OG GOAT: 19:11

Guys, rideshare, e-bikes, city bikes, whatever you want to call it, these parking stations all over the place. I have a funny feeling that eventually these bikes are going to get left on the side of the road. You're going to start seeing them all over the place. You're going to have them not even manned. They're just going to be sitting places. People could just hop on it, take it, get careless with it. Next thing you know people just ride them. You know why. Why plug it in when you could just leave it on and leave it, you know, somewhere for the next guy so they can get a ride or whatever.

OG GOAT: 19:59

I just see too many issues with it. Not to mention, on top of that, you're telling people that they can weave in and out of traffic. Well, you're not directly saying they could weave in and out of traffic, but I haven't seen a cop yet give a bicycle a ticket for weaving in and out of traffic. You know what I mean. And these guys is, you know you're playing with your lives. There's buses and trucks and all kind of things, blind-sized. These bikes don't have mirrors on it. Some of them have lights in the front. Some of them the lights don't work. Whatever the case might be, it's just a bad situation about to happen. I don't think it's a good idea and someone needs to do something about it. Get the bikes up out the neighborhood and put them where they belong. That's it for my story tonight. These city bikes. This is OG Goat with another episode of. What Part of the Game is that? I'm out.