Biking in NYC

Citibikes have come to Manhattan.  This is a bike sharing plan where:

• you sign up for access for some period of time (a day, a week or a year)
• take out a bike from a bike stand (self service - without a human operator)
• ride
• return the bike to another bike stand (again, without human intervention)
• hopefully return your bike within 45 minutes so you don't pay overage fees

I have my own bike, and there aren't many bike stands anywhere near me (or any above 59th street for that matter), so I do not plan on using the system at all.  However, I hope the system works and leads to these benefits:

• Safer streets for cyclists.  The raw number of bike accidents and related injuries will surely rise, because the raw number of riders (many of them less skilled) will rise.  Yet, the more cyclists there are, the safer it is for other cyclists.  Cars (and pedestrians) will be more aware of cyclists, which will hopefully reduce the rate of collisions with each.  
• Less congestion on the subway and buses.  

Hopefully there are many other unknown benefits.  Some downsides of citibikes are:

• reduces the number of parking spots for cars.
• the bike stands are a bit of an eyesore to some.  I'm not sure if the bike stands look worse than parked cars or wind mills off the coast of cape cod, but it is a complaint.