Civic News
Technology / Transportation

There’s still time to suggest new Citi Bike locations in Brooklyn

The Citi Bike system is doubling in size by 2017.

A Citi Bike station. (Photo by Flickr user Shinya Suzuki, used under a Creative Commons license)

You can weigh in on where new Citi Bike stations should go with this Shareabouts-powered map from NYC DOT. Sign up, log in and find an address where you think a Citi Bike station should go. Odds are, someone has already picked that spot, so go ahead click the “love” button to add your support.

(This reporter thinks it is crazy that there isn’t a station outside the main branch of the Brooklyn Public Library, which is also the north end of Prospect Park, which is also where Grand Army Plaza is, which is also where one of the biggest weekend farmers markets is, but we digress.)

Good news, Brooklyn (and Queens) are getting the first bunch of new bike pods. See the map below.

It had to happen, though: Citi Bike is upping its prices.

With every other form of transportation system heavily subsidized by the government, Citi Bike is weird in every way. It became the largest bike-share system in the world nearly from day one, and yet it never had any kind of subsidy from the city. It got hit with the double whammy of Hurricane Sandy and inverted assumptions about who would want to use it (tourists don’t; New Yorkers do).

It is, however, also dramatically expanding, with a vision of ultimately reaching all of Brooklyn.

Thanks to a heavy new investment round from new owners of its parent company (and an increased commitment from Citi), the system plans to expand. From a DOT press release:

The Citi Bike system, which will continue to be operated by NYC Bike Share (NYCBS), a subsidiary of Alta, will be expanded from the current system of 330 stations and 6,000 bikes to over 700 stations and 12,000 bikes by the end of 2017. Citi Bike will stretch further out into Brooklyn, into Harlem, and bring bikes to Queens for the first time.

So weigh in using the link above as to where you think the new locations should go. (Broadly speaking, of course, the decision has already been made, as the below map suggests.)

Citi Bike expansion map

Citi Bike’s expansion map. (Via citibikeblog.tumblr.com)

The de Blasio administration has stood firm that it won’t support a subsidy, and it appears that this brinksmanship has paid off. So many people use the system that it’s hard to imagine a scenario in which New York would allow it to go under.

On the other hand, one has to wonder whether, down the road, its weird third-class infrastructure status (as part of the city but not part of city government) could leave it in something like the position of New York’s independent libraries: widely supported but rundown for inadequate public investment.

Citi Bike is run by NYC Bike Share, which is located in Sunset Park.

Companies: Citi Bike
Series: Brooklyn
Engagement

Join the conversation!

Find news, events, jobs and people who share your interests on Technical.ly's open community Slack

Trending
Technically Media