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How Many Parking Spaces Will CitiBike Share Gobble Up?
By
Garth Johnston
Published May 15, 2012
Modified May 15, 2012
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By
Garth Johnston
Published May 15, 2012
Modified May 15, 2012
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Last week the city not only released the name and pricing of its ambitious new bike share program, now called CitiBike, it also released a draft map of the locations where it hopes to put the program's initial 420 bike stations and 7,000 bikes in July (an additional 3,000 bikes and 180 stations will come next Spring, expanding the program into the UES and UWS, as well as Park Slope, Cobble Hill, Prospect Heights and Crown Heights). While we've raised questions about some aspects of the program's pricing, we really are fans of the prospective rack locations. Even more so after spending time studying the map of locations for Manhattan. However, we suspect some motorists are not going to like what they see come July.
Right now the city is only providing its list of potential locations in a Google Map and in two PDFs, one of Manhattan (above) and one of Brooklyn/Queens [PDF]. To get a better sense of what those maps mean, we went through all of the locations in Manhattan and put them into a spreadsheet by hand (here). So, let's be clear: everything on these maps is subject to change. As the DOT is happy to remind you, they intend to keep working with Community Boards, hashing out details of rack size and location even after the racks start hitting the ground. Which isn't that hard, as one of the interesting aspects of the bike share stations coming to us is that they are very easily modified.
Manhattan's Bike Share Alone Is Going To Be Freaking Huge
When London first rolled out its highly praised Boris Bike program in 2010 it included an impressive 10,000 docking spaces (the city later added another 15,000). They got nothing on us. For our first go, New York is putting nearly that many docks in Manhattan alone. If the draft map becomes reality we're talking 9,512 docking stations in New York County alone!
Manhattan Is About To Lose Some Serious Parking
As part of the planning of the rack map, the DOT held dozens of demos and open houses around the city, as well as 13 planning workshops. At those, folks seemed surprisingly fine with losing parking spots to the program—and that shows in the draft. Here's the breakdown of draft CitiBike station locations in Manhattan:
As you can see, the number of stations that would usurp street parking spaces are way ahead of everything else, with a potential 3,984 docks being located in former parking places.
So how many parking spaces is that exactly? Hard to say! Because the stations can grow and shrink on a dime the DOT isn't giving us an exact specification for how big they expect them to be (seriously, these babies are basically heavy metal boards that aren't connected to the grid and are therefore "infinitely expandable"). But just for fun, let's say 7 docks fit in the equivalent of a car space? Then we're talking about 570 parking spaces going *poof* come July (and that's just Manhattan). We suspect some people are not going to like that, while others will laud CitiBike for taking cars off the street. Either way, it shows how serious the city is about this program.
Broadway Is About To Become Bikeway
There is a lot to be impressed with in the locations tentatively chosen for bike share stations, but what really caught our eye is the clever use of Broadway. Thanks to the work of the DOT over the last few years, the storied thoroughfare has increasingly been taken over by bike paths and pedestrian malls, and CitiBike should cement the deal. From the top of the system down through Union Square (with the exception of Times Square) the strip is going to be littered with large stations. Just between Columbus Circle and East 49th Street the strip will have 257 docks available for you to park/pick up a bike. That all stops once the street essentially becomes an outdoor mall, which all seems pretty smart to us.
They Are Really Serious About Making This Work With Other Transit Options
Part of the goal of the program is to work seamlessly with other mass transit options, and the locations and number of docks available emphasize that. To wit: There should be 177 docks within a block from Penn Station, 94 within a block of the Port Authority, 113 by the Staten Island Ferry and 149 just outside of Grand Central (if only The Avengers had filmed this summer then the Hulk could totally have used those 42 pound bikes to good effect!). In addition, there really are stops near most of the major subway stations the system currently covers, which is pretty great. One major exception? There aren't any really directly off the L stops besides Union Square. 14th Street, the longest in the borough, has just 64 docks planned. Instead the city has carefully and cleverly placed docks a block south of most of the L stops on 13th Street.
CitiBike Employees Are Going To Be Hauling A Lot Of Bikes
To make a bike share system work properly the program has to constantly manage where bikes are located, trucking them into and out of high-traffic areas. And they are going to have their work cut out for them in Midtown. Just look at the area around Times Square, think about how many workers there are there and about how relatively few docks there are nearby. Those poor guys and gals are going to have to be trucking bikes out all morning and in all night. Speaking of...Hey! They've started hiring!
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