Citi Bike is expanding in the Bronx to include Community District 6 and parts of Community District 8, and the NYC Department of Transportation (DOT) is collecting feedback for where the bike docks should be located.
The bike share company, which is owned by rideshare company Lyft allows riders to rent bicycles off of docks that are either installed on the street or sidewalk. Users can ride outside the Citi Bike service area, but the bikes need to be returned to a designated dock.
Citi Bike has been growing in popularity in the Bronx, as ridership is two times higher year to date than it was during the same period last year, a spokesperson for Lyft told the Bronx Times.
Rides in the Bronx average more than 21 minutes, nearly 60% longer than the citywide average of about 13 minutes, the spokesperson said. And the Grand Concourse neighborhood is the busiest section of the borough for the program.
While Citi Bike offers regular and electric bikes, about 80% of rides over the past year in the Bronx were on e-bikes, compared to 40% citywide, according to the spokesperson.
The expanded areas build off of the existing Citi Bike footprint in the borough, which includes most of the southwest portions of the Bronx, up to the eastern side of the Jerome Park Reservoir.
To the west of the reservoir, the Citi Bike zone will branch into Kingsbridge Heights, Kingsbridge, Van Cortlandt Village and Marble Hill in Community District 8, but the program will not extend to other parts of the district, like Spuyten Deyvil, Fieldston, Riverdale or North Riverdale.
Meanwhile, on the eastern side of the existing bike share area, the expanded zone largely mimics Community District 6’s boundaries, including Belmont, Bathgate, East Tremont and West Farms.
Installation is anticipated to take place in the fall, a DOT spokesperson told the Bronx Times.
The new Citi Bike areas will fill out the Bronx portion of Citi Bike’s Phase 3 plan, which was announced in 2019 by former Mayor…
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