Redlining + Barry Biggs
Is CitiBike a solution or a problem? A report commissioned by New York Communities for Change and carried out by McGill’s School of Urban Planning, using census data, says “CitiBike serves white New Yorkers at a disproportionately high rate, 16.5% of the city’s people of color live in the network’s service area compared to 37% of white residents.” (Read the Daily News story or look at this screencap.)
CitiBike recently started offering discounted memberships to people receiving SNAP benefits, which is great. Let’s hope they play that tape out and choose the slow work of improvement over the quick flash of PR stunts. The dockless bike thing ain’t gonna work. We’ve already heard about a basement in Bed-Stuy filled with stolen and discarded CitiBikes. In London, ofo’s dockless bikes ended up “dangling from trees and set alight for fun.”
Here is an amazing cover by Barry Biggs of Evelyn Champagne King’s “Love Come Down.” (H/T to Dave Tompkins.)