NYC Mayor Eric Adams along with the NYC DOT and Lyft recently announced that, following record-high ridership numbers across NYC over the past few months, they’ll expand and improve the Citi Bike service significantly.
Citi Bike, which first launched ten years ago, is not only the largest bike share program in the nation but also the fastest-growing transportation network in the city’s history with 200 million all-time rides.
Over the span of three years, from August 2020 to September 2023, the system’s number of docking has doubled, and in August of this year the system set a monthly record with over 4 million rides–an increase of 63% from 2019.
Just two months later on October 28th, a record-breaking 161,422 rides took place, accounting for approximately one-quarter of the total estimated cycling trips on an average NYC day. The system has even set a new annual record for rides per year–30.7 million as of October 29th–with just about two months left in the year.
And while the system has grown exponentially to more than 30,000 bikes and 2,000 stations–more than four times the amount it had at launch in May 2013–they’re not done expanding yet.
To meet ridership demand and growth (and to promote cycling and micromobility) Citi Bike will double its electric bike fleet and pilot at least two electrified charging/docking stations by the end of next year.
Additional improvements include electrifying 20% of stations in the coming years and introducing new price caps to its e-bike pricing model.
After the completion of the Phase 3 expansion, Citi Bike will have deployed more than 40,000 bikes. This year’s expansion areas include:
- Ditmas Park and Flatbush in Brooklyn
- Jackson Heights, Corona, and Elmhurst in Queens
- Bathgate and Marble Hill in the Bronx
Mayor Adams stated:
Biking in NYC wouldn’t be what it is today without Citi Bike, and we’re launching a new era of our city’s two-wheeled history by expanding and improving this system. I’ve biked all across the city — from High Bridge to the Brooklyn Bridge — and this agreement with Lyft ensures that public bike share will be available for New Yorkers to do the same for the next decade. As we work every day to promote safe cycling on bikes and e-bikes, we will never stop making it greener, cleaner, and easier for all New Yorkers to travel across our great city.
The news comes shortly after Mayor Adams announced the addition of 40+ miles of greenway coming to NYC’s outer boroughs as well as the news that a real-time bike map for cyclists may be coming to NYC.