Wednesday Night: Citi Bike Panel

I’m moderating a panel hosted by Women in Housing and Finance, “A Closer Look at the Planning, Implementation, and Financing of Citi Bike.” It takes place on Wednesday, November 13th from 6:30 to 8:30 PM at Nixon Peabody, 437 Madison Avenue in Manhattan.

As the title suggests, we’ll be talking about how bike sharing in New York City went from an idea to a functioning system, the finer points of financing, and what the future has in store for this hugely successful program.

In May 2013, the much-anticipated New York City bike share program, known as Citi Bike, was launched with 6,000 bicycles and 330 docking stations Midtown, Lower Manhattan and West Brooklyn. Citi Bike was born as a public-private partnership, operated by NYC Bike Share LLC, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Alta Bicycle Share, Inc., which is a Portland-based company focused solely on operating large-scale bike share systems, including bike share locations in Washington DC, Boston, Melbourne and Toronto.

In the six months since its launch, Citi Bike has already become the largest bike share program in the county with more than 80,000 annual members, over 3.5 million cumulative trips and 7 million miles traveled to date. In its first year of operation, the program is expected to generate approximately $36 million in economic activity and create 170 new jobs.

Panelists include:

• Justin Ginsburgh, General Manager, New York City Bike Share
• Kate Fillin-Yeh, Department of Transportation
• Caroline Samponaro, Senior Director of Campaigns & Organizing, Transportation Alternatives
• Margaret Anadu, Vice President, Goldman Sachs Urban Investment Group

The cost is $25 ($15 for students) and RSVP is required at whfnyc@gmail.com. Hope you can make it.