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NYC artist creates device that slows Citi Bikes passing through rent-burdened areas
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Stephen Nessen
Published Sep 1, 2026
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Stephen Nessen / Gothamist
By
Stephen Nessen
Published Sep 1, 2026
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There are many benchmarks to measure the city’s affordability crisis, but one crafty “technologist” has devised a novel way for New Yorkers to physically feel the disparity in rent burdens.
Justin Blinder, 41, built a device that attaches to the fork of a Citi Bike and is outfitted with a GPS locator along with a card loaded with census data detailing where people have the hardest time paying their rent. He calls it “Ground Truth.”
As you ride through a neighborhood with a high number of residents that struggle to afford rent, the device kicks in and adds resistance to the bike’s front wheel, as if some magical force is applying the brake. As you pedal into an area where the rent burden eases, the bike coasts along easily.
Citi Bike docks are sometimes viewed as omens of gentrification. When the system expands to a new neighborhood, it’s often a sign of new housing, new people — and, in many cases, rising rents.
But the actual data revealed through the device isn’t as obvious as New Yorkers might think. Many areas that have a higher rent burden aren’t low-income neighborhoods, but corridors that have seen a rapid rise in housing costs in recent years.
On a recent Citi Bike ride around Prospect Park with the “Ground Truth” mechanism, Blinder cruised easily down Prospect Park West until he hit Windsor Terrace. Then the brake kicked in, and the bike was nearly frozen.
“ When it's in a heavily rent-burdened area, it does make you kind of do a double-take and really consider your surroundings a bit more,” Blinder said.
Windsor Terrace isn’t exactly a needy area. Median household income in the community district that covers Windsor Terrace and Sunset Park was about $97,000 in 2024, according to an analysis by NYU's Furman Center. In 2021, when Citi Bike docks first arrived in the area, the median asking rent was $2,250, according to StreetEasy. Over the following five years, that figure grew to $3,800, far exceeding the rate of inflation.
Justin Blinder, creator of "Ground Truth."
Dana Binfet / Gothamist
As Blinder rode near NYCHA complexes in Brooklyn, the device let up some resistance, which he said is a sign public housing is affordable for its tenants.
“ If you're going through NYCHA housing, a lot of times the bike will actually maybe speed up more,” Blinder said. “And in that case, it's really just showing that public housing is working. It's really helping to offset at least that burden for people, but it doesn't necessarily mean their lives are more affordable per se.”
More than half the city’s residents spend at least 30% of their income on rent which puts them in a category known as "rent-burdened,” according to the American Community Survey. About three out of 10 spend more than half of their income on rent.
Affordability is the buzzword on the lips of politicians these days. Mayor Zohran Mamdani won the election on a pledge to address the high cost of living. But Blinder wants people to not just understand it intellectually, but viscerally.
“ I think part of the project was really thinking about a lot of our preconceptions of what affordability looks like and what it doesn't,” Blinder said.
He’s worked on immersive technology projects in the past, and came up with the idea during the pandemic, when he lost his job and started making money as a delivery worker.
“ It was really that experience of just going throughout the city and seeing, just how much the, income, economic and psychological qualities of the city differed so much on a block-by-block basis,” he said.
The project was funded with a $10,000 award from the group Idle Hands that supports artists.
The project comes as there’s a new push to lower the cost of e-bike rides for Citi Bike members to a flat fee of $3, something more affordable than the $12.15 they currently pay for a 45 minute ride.
Blinder is aware that more well-off neighborhoods typically get access to Citi Bikes.
“ I think the project is also kind of a dual critique of Citi Bike in terms of how expensive it's become,” Blinder said.
He made the device on a 3D printer, and said he hopes people in other cities with bike share programs will download the specs to launch similar projects of their own.
Tagged
economy
housing
new york city
transportation
Stephen Nessen
Stephen Nessen covers transportation. Since 2008 he has reported on everything from Occupy Wall Street, the rebuilding of the World Trade Center site, Hurricane Sandy, to Trump’s campaign for president. His transportation reporting has taken him everywhere from the MTA’s secret Rail Control Center to the gleaming subways of Seoul. Got a tip? Email [email protected].
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Gothamist is funded by sponsors and member donations
Gothamist is funded by sponsors and member donations
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