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Citi Bike Promised To Add "Thousands" Of E-Bikes This Summer. Where Are They?
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Jake Offenhartz
Published Aug 10, 2020
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By
Jake Offenhartz
Published Aug 10, 2020
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Citi Bike has fallen behind on their promised expansion of pedal-assist electric bikes, the latest setback for the popular battery-powered bikes at a time of growing demand for alternative transportation options.
This past May, as the city was gearing up for its Phase 1 pandemic reopening, a spokesperson for Lyft, which owns Citi Bike, previewed the company's plan to “increase the number of e-bikes and...have thousands on the street by the end of the summer."
On a Monday afternoon more than ten weeks later, there were fewer than 100 e-bikes available to ride throughout the entire system, according to a review by Gothamist. Several neighborhoods, including large stretches of Central Brooklyn, were without a single e-bike.
Julie Wood, a Lyft spokesperson, attributed the lack of bikes to COVID-related supply chain impacts and the labor intensive-work of swapping out batteries on the motorized bikes. She said there were "hundreds" of bikes in the system, including those currently being ridden, but declined to immediately provide an exact number.
"Pedal-assist bikes have proven incredibly popular, and we are working hard to keep up with demand both on a daily basis as well as by increasing our fleet," the spokesperson said. "We are on track to add hundreds more throughout the rest of the summer and more on top of that this year."
The e-bikes were first introduced by Citi Bike in 2018, and were an immediate hit with New Yorkers, including many who said they didn't normally ride bikes.
But last April, the company pulled the entire fleet of e-bikes — roughly 1,000 in total — after a braking issue sent some riders careening over the handlebars. Though Lyft promised they'd return in the fall, the bikes didn't start trickling out until this past February. A spokesperson for the company said then that there would be "several thousand" pedal-assist bikes on the streets by peak riding season this summer.
The sluggish e-bike roll-out is of growing concern, according to some advocates, as the pandemic fuels fears of an automobile apocalypse in NYC. Last month, city residents registered nearly 40,000 vehicles, a jump from recent years, the CITY reported on Sunday.
"Pedal-assist bikes expand access to cycling for those who might not otherwise choose bike share — people who can't pedal a traditional bike over the Queensboro Bridge, or who just don't want to be covered in sweat," Transportation Alternatives spokesman Joe Cutrufo told Gothamist. "And critically, more people on bikes means fewer people in cars."
Unlike other transportation systems, the bike-share system does not receive any taxpayer subsidy.
This past May, Lyft laid off 17 percent of its workforce and furloughed hundreds more, amid plummeting demand for ride-sharing. Those layoffs included some employees who worked at Citi Bike.
A former Lyft employee, who spoke to Gothamist anonymously because they feared being sued, said that losses in Lyft's core business would likely hurt the bike-share system — including the promised expansion of e-bikes. The employee pointed to Uber's recent decision to sell its bike-share business, sending thousands of perfectly good bikes to the scrapyard.
"When you're a publicly traded company under pressure to get to a path of profitability, it’s really tough to roll out a new bike thing," the employee said. "[Bike-share] burns cash like nobody's business."
A spokesperson for Lyft denied that the company's financial situation would adversely impact the quality of service offered by Citi Bike.
Tagged
we the commuters
bike-sharing
citibike
e-bike
transportation
Jake Offenhartz
Jake Offenhartz is a former Gothamist reporter.
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Gothamist is funded by sponsors and member donations
Gothamist is funded by sponsors and member donations
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