I see in the article:

"Taxpayers are paying $5,249 per bike"

However another bike share program referenced in the article NYC "Citibike" is subsidized by Citibank, and bikes are painted in citibank livery. I would be curious to know what the difference is price per bike is with a corporate subsidy.

That being said I personally find the idea of riding around on an advertisement for Citibank agreeable. Is the NYC bike share program an anomaly then in terms of it's model? Many European bike shares also seem to be closer to the non-corporate subsidized model as well.