Visual Insights from a Decade of Citi Bikes in New York

Citi Bike launches in late May with 330 stations. The stations are located in Manhattan south of 59th Street and in Brooklyn north of Atlantic Avenue and west of Nostrand Avenue. Within its first month, there is a reported 500,000 rides.

In October, the New York City Bike Share, the operator of Citi Bike, comes under new ownership and it is announced a plan to improve and expand the Citi Bike program. A 6,000 bike expansion is announced, that will double the size of network from 6,000 to 12,000 bikes.

Citi Bike expansion begins, bringing 140 new stations to Bed-Stuy, Greenpoint, Long Island City, Williamsburg, and Upper East Side and Upper West Side. Citi Bike riders hit a new milestone, 10 million trips in one year.

Citi Bike expansion continues, bringing another 140 stations in the Upper East Side & Upper West Side in Manhattan and Jersey City, and moving into new Brooklyn neighborhoods. The program also grows from 8,000 to 10,000 bikes. Citi Bike gains its 100,000th Annual Member.

Citi Bike adds another 142 stations in Harlem, East Harlem, Astoria, Crown Heights, and Prospect Heights, growing from 10,000 to 12,000 bikes.

NYC reaches an agreement with Lyft to dramatically expand Citi Bike—Lyft will invest $100 million to improve and strengthen the system, doubling Citi Bike’s service area and tripling the number of bikes in the next five years to 40,000, making it one of the largest bike share systems in the world. Additionally, the Reduced Fare Bike Share program, providing discounted memberships of $5 per month for all NYCHA residents and SNAP recipients, is expanded and enshrined in Lyft’s agreement with the City.

Citi Bike has boomed in popularity since it debuted in 2013, nearly doubling the number of bikes in its fleet and tripling the average number of daily rides. It is also now available on the Lyft app. However, due to security concerns with brakes and batteries, Citibike removes 2,500 ebikes from its bikeshare fleets in New York, San Francisco and Washington DC.

Citi Bike reintroduces e-bikes to their bike share fleet in New York City. With the COVID-19 pandemic, new ridership patterns arise. On standard weekday commutes, there are typically 45% more evening commuters than morning commuters. During COVID, this trend becomes even more pronounced, with more than twice as many evening trips.

Citibike expands to Inwood and Washington Heights, completing its Manhattan expansion. It also launches in Hoboken, creating a seamless bikeshare system between Hoboken, Jersey City, and New York City. Additionally, riding patterns are now more complicated and unpredictable than ever, with hybrid work schedules layered on top of schools reopening, and warm weather recreational rides that don’t follow traditional commuting patterns.

Citibike rolls out new and improved powerful e-bikes with increased safety features in May. There are now 23,500 bikes, including 4,500 ebikes, across more than 1,500 stations. Citi Bike has expanded its service area to include new parts of Astoria, Sunset Park, and Inwood, and the West Bronx. Emboldened, Citi Bike eliminates the $3 price cap on e-bike rides for members riding between outer boroughs (Queens and Brooklyn) of NYC.

There are more than 30,000 bikes and over 2,000 stations. Citibike announces that ebikes will make up roughly half of their fleet by the end of 2024. The blue bikes have become popular fixtures in New York City’s landscape, making appearances in films and TV shows like Succession, Blue Bloods and Entergalactic. Despite the demand, Citi Bike’s agreement with New York City doesn’t include system expansion or public funding for bike share.

Citibike announces increases in prices to help fund station upgrades and more e-bikes. Later this year, the program will open its first electrified stations to streamline the charging process for their e-bikes and cut down on 80 percent of the manual battery swaps the company currently has to do.