Hello everyone,

Over the past several months I’ve been working hard on building a business called NYCycles that I believe everyone in New York City could potentially benefit from. The basic idea is to establish a network of bicycles and lock-up stations throughout the five boroughs so that commuters, tourists, or your average cyclist can get from point A to point B in good time and at a low cost.

The benefits of such a program are far reaching, too. What better way to fight high cholesterol than doing a little cardio work-out every morning? Tired of being packed into a subway car like a sardine? Then experience the city in a new light by riding a bicycle and breath in that fresh NYC air! Okay, maybe it’s not that fresh, but it could be overtime if our streets were redesigned to accommodate a growing number of cyclists. Mayor Mike Bloomberg and the Director of the Department of Transportation, Jannete Sadik-Kahn, have made some great progress in this area by adding 100 miles of bike lanes in NYC.

In sum, our mission is to build choice into the city’s transportation system and hopefully improve the quality of life for every New Yorker. The success of such a bike-share program, however, relies on our ability to think creatively and generate good ideas that can potentially yield some value. A former boss of mine would have referred to this as “low hanging fruit” with his arms extended, cupping the imaginary fruit. Then again, he only ever really talked in abstract business terms, but I assure you the fruit is real this time and oh so ripe.

Where, then, do you fit in? Well, I wouldn’t have made any progress without the help of my friends and some other very talented individuals. Thanks to my teammates Ben Gluckstern and Esha Gurnani, we recently secured a $1000 grant from the Catherine B. Reynold’s foundation and Youth Venture Entrepreneurship Competition. Building a lock-up station, iPhone application, or simply a website would not even be possible without the help of a few tech savvy friends of mine like Adam Mellovitz, Ben Everson, Dinesh Penugonda, and Jack Friosli. And, of course, my brother who has guided me every step of the way throughout this journey.

All these people and more volunteered their time to help me out in ways that I could never have anticipated, and perhaps they may never have imagined themselves either had I not explicitly turned to them for advice. So if you would like to take part in this project of mine, then I urge you to do so and contact me at andrew@nycycles.org. Whether it’s a brilliant idea or just a friendly letter saying hello, I encourage you to send it anyways.

Feel free to become a fan of NYCycles on Facebook, visit our streetsblog account, or monitor our progress as we continue to develop our website (www.nycycles.org) and iPhone application.

Thank you,

Andrew Hearst

andrew@nycycles.org

 Welcome!

NYCycles is an organization committed to establishing a bicycle share program in New York City. We hope to utilize this social networking outlet as a means to connect with local citizens who share a common interest in changing our city’s transportation infrastructure. Our company invites you to monitor our progress as we begin to develop our website www.nycycles.org and concomitant newsletter over the next several months. Our immediate goal is to develop a comprehensive plan outlining how a bicycle share program might operate given the current layout of our city’s streets, parks and sidewalks. 

Since the implementation of our plan will have an impact on the local community, we hope to include you and your neighbors in the process of gathering data, creating awareness and designing a model program. In order to facilitate such involvement, NYCycles is exploring new ways to channel your participation in an organized and efficient manner. Some of these channels include an iPhone application and an Excel formatted “Commuter Report”. The information gathered from each of these sources will play an integral role toward the development of NYCycles’s bicycle share program.

We encourage you to contact us at info@nycycles.org  if you have any questions or feedback about how best to succeed in improving our community together as a team. 

Thank you,

Andrew Hearst