Five Months In, Citi Bike Still Hasn’t Killed Anybody
Even the Citi Bike-related injuries have mostly been minor, and relatively rare (there have been about two dozen so far, presumably not including the angry pedestrians who’ve straight-up tripped over the stations). And if Bloomberg is to be believed, the bikes are actually making the streets safer, by virtue of their heightened visibility and “safety in numbers.”
Or, to put it more bluntly, Transportation Commissioner Janette Sadik-Khan told the Times, “This notion of blood on the streets has not proven out.” No jinxing, though: the Times writes that “some officials have expressed a skittishness about even discussing the numbers,” citing the city’s recent, lauded week without homicides, which was immediately followed by a brutal 10-hour stretch that saw five. Still, encouraging news, especially for a program still in its infancy. Looks like we can all go back to trumping up charges of elitism against the bikes, then.
Follow Virginia K. Smith on Twitter @vksmith.
