New York Times: "Halimah Marcus’s bike had been collecting dust for five years. But as coronavirus fears exploded in New York, she pumped air into the tires and replaced the batteries in the light mounted on the handle bar. By Monday, Ms. Marcus, 34, was biking daily to work instead of taking the R subway train. She has not been back on the subway. And she has a lot of company in the bike lanes."
"Citi Bike, the city’s bike share program, has seen demand surge 67 percent this month: Between March 1 and March 11, there were a total of 517,768 trips compared with 310,132 trips during the same period the year before. A growing wave of New Yorkers are embracing cycling to get to work and around the city as their regular subway and bus commutes have suddenly become fraught with potential perils, from possibly virus-tainted surfaces to strangers sneezing and coughing on fellow passengers."
“'It reduced my anxiety,' said Ms. Marcus, the executive director of a nonprofit digital publisher in Downtown Brooklyn. 'For me, riding is manageable, and I felt it would be beneficial to my mental health.'”