The city is considering a plan for bike sharing. Here’s an excerpt from Streetsblog.

After dropping hints that ‘Free Bike Fridays’ on Governors Island could serve as a prelude to something bigger, DOT today announced its intention to “explore the concept of bike share and investigate the feasibility of instituting such a program in New York City.” The agency has issued a Request for Expressions of Interest [PDF] to determine what a bike-share program in New York might look like, and how it would function.

“New York is a world-class city for biking, and we are looking to build a world-class bike network,” said DOT Commissioner Janette Sadik-Khan in a statement released today. If the agency likes what it receives by the September 15 deadline, the next step may be to issue a Request for Proposals. The RFEI itself does not guarantee that DOT will award a contract.

The New York Times had this report:

The city took a tentative step this week toward fulfilling the dream of a certain kind of urban idealist, saying that it will explore the possibility of creating a bike-sharing program that could make hundreds or even thousands of bicycles available for public use.

“This is a really big deal,” said Wiley Norvell, a spokesman for Transportation Alternatives, an advocacy group for cyclists, pedestrians and transit riders. “In the realm of things you can do to boost bicycling in a city, bike-share is at the top of the list.”

The city asked companies and organizations interested in running a bike-sharing program to provide assessments of how it could work.

A similar program was started last year in Paris, using thousands of bicycles. A program with 120 bicycles was started earlier this year in Washington.