Citi Bikes at a Citi Bike Docking Station./Image Credit: CityLand

The expansion will allow more essential workers to use Citi Bikes during the COVID-19 pandemic. On April 30, 2020, Mayor Bill de Blasio, Department of Transportation Commissioner Polly Trottenberg, and Lyft announced that Citi and Mastercard had committed $1 million to expand the Citi Bike Critical Workforce Membership Program. The program was created by Citi Bike, Mayor Bill de Blasio, and the Department of Transportation to provide essential healthcare and transit workers a free one month Citi Bike membership. Under the expansion, the program would extend the one-month membership and will allow more categories of essential workers to apply for the program. 

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Map of Citi Bike expansion shown in dark blue. Expansion underway is shown in red. Existing CitiBike service shown in light blue. Image Credit: Mayor’s Office.

The Citi Bike expansion will double the current service area by 35 square miles and triple the number of bikes to 40,000. On July 16, 2019, the de Blasio Administration announced Citi Bike’s expansion. Last November, Lyft entered into an agreement with the City to invest $100 million in Citi Bike, which will double the size of Citi Bike’s service area and triple the number of bikes in the program. The expansion will take place from 2019 to 2023 and will bring Citi Bike to all of Manhattan, the Bronx, and deeper into Brooklyn and Queens. (more…)

Ross Sandler

The Bloomberg administration will be remembered for, among other initiatives, a major reallocation of public street space for new and innovative uses. Cars and trucks have been joined by a host of new users, most recently by the long anticipated bike share program. Citibike is a worthy experiment.

The City’s Department of Transportation chased vehicular traffic from portions of Times Square, Herald Square and Madison Square and rededicated the space to movable chairs, tables and planters. Formerly clogged streets now serve as parks for sitters, walkers, lunch time breaks and urban star gazing. Along First Avenue, Second Avenue and other thoroughfares, DOT has seized entire lanes and pushed the parking lane away from the curb and out into the street. It then dedicated the former parking lanes to bicycles. These two shifts – pavement parks and protected bike lanes – constitute the largest shift of street space away from motorized vehicles since New York City started paving streets with asphalt.

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