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Bike Boom Shows No Signs Of Slowing As Citi Bike Sets New Ridership Records
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Jake Offenhartz
Published May 18, 2021
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By
Jake Offenhartz
Published May 18, 2021
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Gorgeous spring weather and the growing pace of reopening has been a major boon for New York City’s bike-share program, according to new data released by Citi Bike.
Cyclists took 631,314 rides on Citi Bike last week, smashing an all time record for the eight-year-old bike share program. Both Friday and Saturday saw consecutive single day highs, with 103,159 and and 118,590 rides, respectively.
Among last week's riders was Mayor Bill de Blasio, who took a leisurely spin through Manhattan on Tuesday, before pledging to build 30 miles of protected bike lanes this year (the city came up short of an identical goal last year.)
"We saw a bike boom across New York City," the mayor said. "We want to keep it rolling, we want to keep it growing."
The surge in ridership comes as Citi Bike continues its expansion into the boroughs. But while new docks have appeared this year in Astoria, Sunset Park, and Inwood, some have criticized the system's growth as too slow.
Even after a phase three expansion is completed in 2023, huge swaths of the city will remain unconnected from the bike share network.
Four Democratic mayoral candidates — Eric Adams, Kathryn Garcia, Dianne Morales, and Scott Stringer — recently told Streetsblog they would support subsidizing Citi Bike, which is owned by Lyft, and has so far received no city money.
By comparison, the NYC Ferry system, which carries just 9,000 riders daily, is set to receive $600 million in taxpayer money in the coming years.
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Jake Offenhartz
Jake Offenhartz is a former Gothamist reporter.
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