Citi Bikes docked in Long Island City (Photo: Queens Post)
Sept. 5, 2017 By Nathaly Pesantez
Citi Bike is slated to begin installing new stations and rolling in bikes to Astoria and Long Island City in the coming weeks, according to the Department of Transportation.
A total of 66 Citi Bike stations are expected to be installed after Sept. 12 in the two neighborhoods, with work completed by the end of the year, according to a spokesperson for the DOT.
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 new locations in Astoria, click here.
As for Long Island City, which already has 13 Citi Bike stations, an additional seven stations have been drawn out to increase station density in the area, according to the DOT. For a map showing the new LIC locations, click here.
The expansion into Astoria and the several station additions to Long Island City 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, a DOT spokesperson said.
Stations are ready to use on the same day they are installed, the DOT said.
In all, 140 stations, which include the 66 in Astoria and Long Island City, and 2000 new bikes will join 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.
