A Citi Bike station in Long Island City
Sept. 5, 2017 by Nathaly Pesantez
Long Island City will see brand new Citi Bike stations in the coming weeks, as installation work is slated to begin after Sept. 12, according to the Department of Transportation.
An additional seven Citi Bike stations will be installed in the neighborhood, bringing the total number of stations in the area up to 20, according to the DOT.
The majority of the new stations will be installed west of Jackson Avenue, with two on opposite stretches of 43rd Avenue, one on 44th Drive, and three in Hunters Point, including one on Center Boulevard between 47th Avenue and 48th Avenue. A Citi Bike station will also be installed near the Hunters Point subway station on 21st street and 49th Avenue. For a full-resolution map showing the LIC locations, click here.
The DOT said the new Citi Bike stations in Long Island City will help improve station density and create for a more robust bike share network in the neighborhood.
In Astoria, the newest and second neighborhood in Queens to be part of the city-wide bike share program, 59 stations will be installed in a stretch from Queens Plaza South up to Ditmars Boulevard. For the full resolution map of Astoria station locations, click here.
The expansion into Long Island City and Astoria are part of the second phase of Citi Bike’s expansion, which also includes installation work for Manhattan and Brooklyn. Work is expected to begin on Sept. 12 in Harlem and continue on a rolling basis until all stations in the Manhattan neighborhood are installed. Then, installation work will move on through Astoria and Long Island City, and finally into Brooklyn until all stations are installed, which should be by the end of the year, according to a DOT spokesperson.
Stations are ready to use on the same day they are installed, the DOT said.
In all, 140 stations, which include the combined 66 coming to Astoria and Long Island City, along with 2000 new bikes, will join the over 600 stations and 10,000 bikes that currently make up the four-year-old bike share program.
With the 2,000 additional bikes added in the coming months, the number of bikes in the system will have doubled to 12,000 from the initial 6,000 since its 2013 launch.
Citi Bike, operated by Motivate, was introduced to Long Island City in 2015.
Locations for Citi Bike stations are decided on through DOT surveys and community input, including community boards, elected officials, and public workshops. Some stations in both Astoria and Long Island City have been reworked and eventually relocated after drafts for the sites were released.
“I thank our partners at Motivate; after just over four years on the streets of New York City, it’s now difficult to imagine a New York City without Citi Bike,” DOT Commissioner Polly Trottenberg said in a statement.
