Citi Bike reveals new expansion plans that keep Queens, Bronx, Upper Manhattan waiting on wheels
Citi Bike has revealed details for the much-anticipated rollout of the popular bike share program with plans to double its reach with docks in the Bronx and more of Manhattan, Brooklyn and Queens. But according to maps and information released in a Tuesday morning meeting obtained by Streetsblog, large swaths of the city won’t see the blue bikes for four more years. As the NY Post reported, some see the Citi Bike rollout as heavily weighted toward more affluent NYC districts, which prompted a letter from several New York City Council members to the NYC Department of Transportation asking for assurance that expansion plans include low-income neighborhoods.
As 6sqft previously reported, car-sharing company Lyft bought Citi Bike‘s operator Motivate last year, which meant a $100 million investment in the program’s expansion and a promise to triple the Citi Bike fleet over the next five years to cover an area more than twice its current size. In the next three years, the bicycle-share program will be doubling its geographic reach to docks in more of Manhattan, the Bronx and Queens (still no bikes for Staten Island).
Before the end of 2023, new bike share stations will pop up in Harlem, Hamilton Heights, Sugar Hill, Washington Heights and Inwood in Manhattan; Mott Haven, Melrose, Port Morris, Highbridge, Claremont, Morrisania, Longwood, Concourse and Mount Eden in the Bronx. In Brooklyn, Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brownsville, Crown Heights, Prospect Lefferts Gardens, East Flatbush, Sunset Park, South Slope, Windsor Terrace, Prospect Park South and Kensington will see new bikes, as will Sunnyside, Maspeth, Elmhurst, Jackson Heights and Corona in Queens.
However, as Streetsblog notes, the program’s deeper expansion will take a frustrating four more years. A few details about the rollout:
- New stations are coming very soon to Ridgewood, Queens to serve the L-train corridor of Williamsburg and Bushwick.
- Next up will be the South Bronx and Upper Manhattan (currently, Citi Bikes can only be found as far north as 130th Street, leaving City College, Hamilton Heights and Washington Heights high and dry.
The final phase of the expansion, which will begin in 2020 and continue through 2023, will include:
- In the Bronx: Mott Haven, Melrose, Port Morris, Highbridge, Claremont, Morrisania, Longwood, Concourse and Mt. Eden.
- In Queens: Sunnyside, Maspeth, Elmhurst, Jackson Heights and Corona.
- In Brooklyn: Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brownsville, Crown Heights, Prospect Lefferts Gardens, East Flatbush, Sunset Park, Windsor Terrace and Kensington.
[Via Streetsblog; via NYPost]
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