Over the last few years, New York has been experiencing an influx of bikers. No, the ones that travel at break-neck speeds on the highway, but simple bicycle riders. While the NYC Department of Transportation has already taken steps to design safer, better-performing streets for motorists, pedestrians and bicycle riders, Mayor Michael Bloomberg wants to further foster the growing bicycle-riding culture by launching a bike share program.

The Bike Share Project is not a new idea. Several bike-friendly cities, such as Hangzhou, China and Paris have been implementing a public bicycle sharing system for several years now. Closer to home, Denver, Colorado has rolled out its bike share with 400 bicycles.

New York is proud to jump on the bandwagon. The New York Bike Share project proposes the initial release of 10,500 bikes across the city, further expanding to 49,000 over time. Bicycle kiosks will be placed in a number of sidewalk corners and users can rent one of the public bikes with a simple card swipe or cellphone call.

New York City resident, Ryan Rzepcki contributes to the project by creating a wireless system that tracks, finds and unlocks the public bicycles using a smart phone app. Known as the Social Bicycle System (SoBi), the system utilizes GPS, mobile communication and a specialized, secure lock that can attach to almost any bicycle and lock to any bicycle rack. Since there are no separate instruments, save the user’s mobile phone, SoBi costs one-third less than previous existing bike share systems.

Not only is this an affordable mode of transportation but bicycles also help to reduce carbon footprints and promote a healthy lifestyle.

Implementing a communal bicycle program can provide several benefits to the buzzing Big Apple. With proper enforcement, bicycles can be an effective form of intermodal transportation. They make for an easily accessible alternative to motorized travel. Over time, the program may actually keep the streets less congested.