Citi Bike stations vs. parking spots: Which is better?

Brooklyn residents with cars: Maybe Citi Bike is actually really good for you?
A new map from data wizard Ben Wellington of iQuantNY shows that even if that’s not the case, the ubiquitous blue Citi Bike stations that dot the streets of Brooklyn are a way more efficient use of space than the two or three parked cars that would sit there otherwise.

In a map released Friday, Wellington examined Citi Bike data from the Park Slope/Carroll Gardens neighborhoods for the month of September. The map shows that the number of people using the Citi Bike stations in a given week is typically multiples higher than those who would have used that space for parking.
It’s simple-enough math: Wellington estimates that one parking space can fit about seven Citi Bikes. A station with 21 bicycles would then take up three parking spots. And with the number of bikes taken out and replaced per day reaching up to 70 in some locations, it’s easy to see that that public property is generating more utility as a station than it would as parking spaces.

Citibike serves way more people than parking spots in Park Slope/Carroll Gardens: https://t.co/27Xg9qDG2A

— IQuantNY (@IQuantNY) October 20, 2016

But, as is always the question, or at least always should be a question: utility for whom?
The largest segment of Citi Bike riders are those under 30 years old, which is also the segment of the population least likely to own a home or car in a neighborhood. Based on pretty sound anecdotal experience, the people with cars in Brooklyn are more likely to be those who own their home and those who have been in their neighborhoods for a long time, rather than young people or transplants. So it’s not the case that having removed the parking and replaced it with Citi Bike stations has increased utility for the neighborhood as an entity. More accuratley, it has increased utility for some in the neighborhood at the expense of others.

About 40% of Citibike users in Carroll Gardens and Park Slope stay within the neighborhood. (cc @StreetsblogNYC , @BrooklynCB6) pic.twitter.com/MQrsimrAmW

— IQuantNY (@IQuantNY) October 20, 2016

Which is not to say it’s not worth it! Maybe some of those riders sacrificed their car shares or stopped taking Uber and that cleared up some cars in the neighborhood, increasing parking spaces and lessening traffic. It’s hard to say.
This also gets into a sort of rights vs. utility argument of how much someone’s utility is worth if it’s sacrificed by other people and who has more rights to a neighborhood, all of which is beyond the scope of Technical.ly Brooklyn.
Anyway, it’s a cool map!