NEW YORK — The nation's biggest bicycle-sharing program got rolling Monday, as thousands of New Yorkers got their first chance to ride a network billed as a new form of public transit in a city known for it.

Humanity's home planet hardly merits the name-check in "After Earth," M. Night Shyamalan's sci-fi survival tale whose shipwreck action could (with the exception of a scene where our hero scrawls a crude map over Lascaux-like cave paintings) take place on any old life-supporting globe in the cosmos. The disappointingly generic film, which strands a father and son (Will and Jaden Smith) on Earth a thousand years after a planet-wide evacuation, will leave genre audiences pining for the more Terra-centric conceits of "Oblivion," not to mention countless other future-set films that find novelty in making familiar surroundings threatening. Will Smith's presence, not just as co-star but as originator of the story, seems likely to carry box office receipts beyond the benchmark of Shyamalan's previous picture, the wretched "The Last Airbender," but those hoping for a franchise should navigate elsewhere.

The League of American Bicyclists has ranked Arizona 10th out of the 50 states for bike friendliness in 2013, a jump from its position of 14th in 2012.

I gathered collected half a dozen towels from my car tonight, about twice as many empty water bottles and half as many cans of sunscreen.

A lone, painted white bicycle sits at the side of Usery Park Road near Bush Highway.

Work has started on a project to add a pedestrian bridge over Loop 101 (Price Freeway) in Chandler, according to the Arizona Department of Transportation.

Arizonans who have to seek protection from creditors in bankruptcy court soon will be able to hang on to more of what they own.

Maricopa County College was named one of the Valley’s healthiest employers by the Phoenix Business Journal.

A driver involved in a deadly hit-and-run east of the Valley Wednesday morning may also be to blame for a second fatal crash, according to the Maricopa County Sheriff's Office.

It’s hard to outgrow that wind-in-your-face freedom that bike riding brings. This weekend’s Great Arizona Bicycle Festival in downtown Mesa seeks to re-capture some of that childlike fun with two days of bike-centric activities along with food, games, and live music.

During a recent home remodel, Diane Wright decided the stairway leading to her garage needed some perking up.

Mesa leaders are asking residents to head online to lend their thoughts on the city’s transportation outlook — input Mayor Scott Smith says is invaluable to creating a plan for the future that suits changing philosophies.

At this exact moment, there’s a farmer somewhere in the world growing coffee beans in order to meet the demands of people hooked on the aromatic, often energy-enducing substance. It is up to those like Valley entrepreneur Jason Silberschlag to head out to exotic locales and find these farmers in order to obtain nothing short of the perfect coffee bean.

The head of the House Judiciary Committee wants to update Arizona's dated and sometimes anachronistic bankruptcy laws.