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“The Daily Show” on Citi Bike: “Doesn’t Anybody Have a Real Objection?”

8:42 AM PDT on June 7, 2013

Forget the ridership numbers: you know you've hit the big time when Jon Stewart and company spend a full nine minutes satirizing you at the top of "The Daily Show."

The first segment, which leans heavily on the fact that European cities also have bike-share and pseudo-satirizes unfounded fears about the program’s safety, is funny while not exactly pro-bike. But the second segment, embedded above, is a needed laugh for New Yorkers who have endured nonsensical objections about bike-share from NIMBY neighbors and editorial board members alike.

Correspondent Al Madrigal traveled to the West Village to talk to people who object to bike-share in the pricey Manhattan neighborhood. "Apart from the 159 meetings, they didn't say a word," Madrigal said to a man who claimed the stations appeared overnight and without warning. "Even though that's not true," Madrigal asked, "why is it?"

Madrigal also went to Bedford-Stuyvesant to hear from a man who complained that the program wasn't expanded further into Brooklyn. Let's just say Bed-Stuy's residents come off looking a lot more reasonable -- and also managed to pop a wheelie for the camera.

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