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This summer the city’s Department of Transportation inaugurates a new bike-share program. People who live and work in New York will be able to travel quickly and cheaply between many neighborhoods. This is major. It will make New Yorkers rethink their city and rewrite the mental maps we use to decide what is convenient and what is possible. Parks, restaurants and friends who once seemed beyond plausible commuting distance on public transportation will seema lot closer. The possibilities aren’t limitless, but the change will be pretty impressive.
More than 200 cities around the world have bike-share programs. We’re not the first, but ours will be one of the largest systems. The program will start with 420
stations spread through the lower half of Manhattan, Long Island City and much of western Brooklyn; eventually more than 10,000 bikes will be available. It will cost just under $10 for a day’s rental. The charge includes unlimited rides during a 24-hour period, as long as each ride is under 30 minutes. So, for example, I could ride from Chelsea to the Lower East Side, from there to food shopping, later to the Brooklyn Academy of Music, and after that, home. This system is not geared for leisure rides up to the George Washington Bridge or to Coney Island. This is for getting around.
I’ve used bike-share programs in London, Ottawa, Washington, Toronto, Barcelona, Milan and Paris. In London, where they introduced a public bike program two years ago, I could enjoy a night out without having to worry about catching the last tube home or finding a no longer readily available black cab. In Paris, the Vélib program has more than 20,000 bikes and extends all the way to the city’s borders. Significantly, the banlieues, the low-income housing projects that surround that city, aren’t included, so the system reinforces a kind of economic discrimination, but maybe more coverage is coming.
I just completed a Latin American tour, not a music tour, but a series of discussions about bikes and transport; there it seems every city has its own bike-share program, many with peculiar local traits. Bogotá, Colombia, for example, has ciclovías, when the main streets are closed to all traffic except cyclists on weekends. Though Gabriel García Márquez reportedly had to lobby his community for approval for a bike path that was to go through his neighborhood in Bogotá, today those citizens are completely sold on biking as a way of getting around. Bogotá bike use has increased by a factor of five. Significantly, the increased biking has affected the city’s economy, as Bogotá recently extended a network of bicycle paths through lower-income neighborhoods around the city’s periphery, making it easier and more affordable for those who don’t live in affl uent areas to get to work.
In Paris, Montreal and Washington — other cities with systems that work the same basicway — I could use bikes to get to work or meetings, run errands and get pretty much wherever I wanted to go. Often, I arrived at destinations more quickly than friends who took cabs or the subway.
At home, it’s gotten easier and safer to ride in the last few years. The city has added 280 miles of bike lanes and paths since 2007; if you stick to the paths, biking is less scary here than in London and Paris. I wouldn’t advise a novice to ride down Canal Street or (God forbid!) on Flatbush Avenue, because there are lots of lanes of different kinds of traffic there and no protected area for bikers.
Look around you. Bikes are everywhere: in glamorous ads and fashionable neighborhoods, parked outside art galleries, clubs, and office buildings. More and more city workers arrive for work on bikes. The future is visible in the increasing number of bikes you see all over the urban landscape. This simple form of transportation is about to make our city more livable, more human and better connected. New Yorkers are going to love the bike-share program – culturally and physically, our city is perfectly suited for it.
a. Which countries that have bike-share programs are mentioned in the text?
b. How many cities have bike-share programs in the world?
c. Why is the Bogota bike-share program peculiar, in the author’s opinion?
d. According to the author, what are the advantages of using a bicycle?
e. How can bike-share programs benefit cities?
This summer the city’s Department of Transportation inaugurates a new bike-share program. People who live and work in New York will be able to travel quickly and cheaply between many neighborhoods. This is major. It will make New Yorkers rethink their city and rewrite the mental maps we use to decide what is convenient and what is possible. Parks, restaurants and friends who once seemed beyond plausible commuting distance on public transportation will seema lot closer. The possibilities aren’t limitless, but the change will be pretty impressive.
More than 200 cities around the world have bike-share programs. We’re not the first, but ours will be one of the largest systems. The program will start with 420
stations spread through the lower half of Manhattan, Long Island City and much of western Brooklyn; eventually more than 10,000 bikes will be available. It will cost just under $10 for a day’s rental. The charge includes unlimited rides during a 24-hour period, as long as each ride is under 30 minutes. So, for example, I could ride from Chelsea to the Lower East Side, from there to food shopping, later to the Brooklyn Academy of Music, and after that, home. This system is not geared for leisure rides up to the George Washington Bridge or to Coney Island. This is for getting around.
I’ve used bike-share programs in London, Ottawa, Washington, Toronto, Barcelona, Milan and Paris. In London, where they introduced a public bike program two years ago, I could enjoy a night out without having to worry about catching the last tube home or finding a no longer readily available black cab. In Paris, the Vélib program has more than 20,000 bikes and extends all the way to the city’s borders. Significantly, the banlieues, the low-income housing projects that surround that city, aren’t included, so the system reinforces a kind of economic discrimination, but maybe more coverage is coming.
I just completed a Latin American tour, not a music tour, but a series of discussions about bikes and transport; there it seems every city has its own bike-share program, many with peculiar local traits. Bogotá, Colombia, for example, has ciclovías, when the main streets are closed to all traffic except cyclists on weekends. Though Gabriel García Márquez reportedly had to lobby his community for approval for a bike path that was to go through his neighborhood in Bogotá, today those citizens are completely sold on biking as a way of getting around. Bogotá bike use has increased by a factor of five. Significantly, the increased biking has affected the city’s economy, as Bogotá recently extended a network of bicycle paths through lower-income neighborhoods around the city’s periphery, making it easier and more affordable for those who don’t live in affl uent areas to get to work.
In Paris, Montreal and Washington — other cities with systems that work the same basicway — I could use bikes to get to work or meetings, run errands and get pretty much wherever I wanted to go. Often, I arrived at destinations more quickly than friends who took cabs or the subway.
At home, it’s gotten easier and safer to ride in the last few years. The city has added 280 miles of bike lanes and paths since 2007; if you stick to the paths, biking is less scary here than in London and Paris. I wouldn’t advise a novice to ride down Canal Street or (God forbid!) on Flatbush Avenue, because there are lots of lanes of different kinds of traffic there and no protected area for bikers.
Look around you. Bikes are everywhere: in glamorous ads and fashionable neighborhoods, parked outside art galleries, clubs, and office buildings. More and more city workers arrive for work on bikes. The future is visible in the increasing number of bikes you see all over the urban landscape. This simple form of transportation is about to make our city more livable, more human and better connected. New Yorkers are going to love the bike-share program – culturally and physically, our city is perfectly suited for it.
a. Which countries that have bike-share programs are mentioned in the text?
b. How many cities have bike-share programs in the world?
c. Why is the Bogota bike-share program peculiar, in the author’s opinion?
d. According to the author, what are the advantages of using a bicycle?
e. How can bike-share programs benefit cities?
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Explicação:
a. The countries mentioned in the text that have bike-share programs are London, Ottawa, Washington, Toronto, Barcelona, Milan, Paris, and Bogotá.
b. The text mentions that more than 200 cities around the world have bike-share programs.
c. The Bogotá bike-share program is considered peculiar because it includes ciclovías, which are special days when the main streets are closed to all traffic except cyclists. Additionally, the program has had a significant impact on the city's economy and transportation accessibility for lower-income neighborhoods.
d. According to the author, the advantages of using a bicycle include the ability to travel quickly and cheaply, the convenience of navigating through traffic, the availability of bike lanes and paths, and the possibility of reaching destinations faster than other modes of transportation.
e. Bike-share programs can benefit cities by providing a convenient and affordable transportation option for residents and visitors. They can reduce traffic congestion, improve air quality, promote physical activity and health, enhance accessibility to different parts of the city, and contribute to a more sustainable and livable urban environment.