SoBi: Social Bike Sharing in NYC

I don't know how much research they've done in NYC, but anything not welded into the main-frame will be stolen. You can't leave a bike locked up unattended for any significant duration of time and expect your bike to be intact when you get back. It's just a matter of fact here.

Yeah, I hope for their sake they don't use all their money for this pilot program because I suspect when people find out about it all the bikes will be stolen/destroyed within a week. New Yorkers use serious locks and chains on crappy-looking old bikes in hopes that the thieves will go after something shinier with less protection.

This looks awesome—like an ad hoc form of the state-sponsored Cycle Hire recently introduced here in London.

I just wonder how long it will be until NY legislators attempt to outlaw unregulated short-term cycle hire :)

Felix Salmon's thoughts on the difficulties with SoBi's business model:

http://blogs.reuters.com/felix-salmon/2010/08/11/why-small-s...

An interesting take since Felix is very pro-bike.