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.
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23 Comments
Well, ha ha, I agree that bikers should obey traffic regulations. No one is above the law. But you also have to consider that there are more people and more cars because of that increasing population (About 7.3 million in 1990 vs. 8.5+ now) And then you have Uber and all the similar services adding to the mix. Cars are edging cars out of the city. I’m all for bikers being required by law to get driver safety courses and being regulated. The average speed of Manhattan streets has been about 3 mph OR LESS for years. That’s way before there were as many bikes as there are now. 3 MPH that’s really slow. There are emergency vehicles and delivery vehicles that would really benefit from going faster. Bikes need to be thought of as an alternative form of transportation and have to be regulated as such. If this means licensing and enforcing laws that’s fine. We can’t just keep adding more and more cars.
To ha ha, so you actually believe that if there was no bike parking that you would be able to find parking space in Times Square? So the only thing that’s standing between you and parking space is bicycle parking?
To Basta, yes many people in the boros drive cars. That is unquestionable but do you realize that NYC has the LOWEST percentage of car ownership in the entire country? Also did you know that 50% of ALL mass transit commuters Nation wide live in the NY Metro area? Also, when you say convenience and associate that with cars do you think that increasing the number of cars in NYC would INCREASE that convenience? Is the logic there that if 1 million cars are good then 10 million cars must be ten times better? If fewer people drove it would be much better for the people who did drive. How would you suffer from encountering FEWER cars on the road?
Hi Albert. I believe you are referring to my comment about how cars are already being edged out of the city with the citi bike installations and pedestrian green spaces. I didn’t say anything about parking, and I personally wouldn’t be so dumb to try and park or drive anywhere near times Sq (or go there at all really.) so I’m not really sure what your point is.
My point is very simple. The bikes are currently only adding to the frustration of transportation in the city and are made worse through the fact that there is no regulation of bikers enforcing them to follow the rules of road, vs riding like they own the street (causing more traffic frustrations and accident opportunities)
Beyond sobriety checks we don’t stop all cars to see if everything is kosher so that won’t happen with bikes either. Bikes are treated like toys, they don’t come with lights or horns or bells standard – that needs to be changed. We can’t just say “it’s not done now and it’s really difficult so it can’t be done”‘ This needs to be taken seriously and thought out.
agreed. Like I said above, Drivers, Bikers and Pedestrians who don’t obey the laws are not being reprimanded or ticketed. It is a transportation wide issue. I also think it’s horribly irresponsible to not make helmets mandatory for bikes, like seat belts are for drivers. It’s amazing to me that Citi hasn’t been sued yet for injuries sustained while riding without a helmet.
A couple of things have to happen. We need to make it legal to bring bikes into office buildings and provide indoor parking for bikes – dedicated garages? And we need to make biking safer. If those things were done you would get lots more people riding bikes and fewer people driving. It would benefit the entire city. There is a lot of money to be made if it were done the right way and after that you would see things change. But until then bikes will remain second class modes of transportation.
when was bringing bikes into buildings ILlegal? It’s up to your building to decide if they want it. Just convince them.Yes more people more use of more different types of transportation. One word, robots….. *mic drop*
When was it illegal? ALWAYS. there has been some loosening up but not like it should be. And if it is up to your building then why would they do this? The city needs to require it otherwise there is no benefit to building owners as they see it and they won’t change anything. As for convincing them what is your strategy to convince them, tell them that it will benefit YOU? And they care about that for what reason?
How about we address the safety issue with Biker Education classes – It’s not a cure but it’s a step in the right direction. We are all guilty of no obeying traffic laws – bikers, drivers, pedestrians so breaking the law is an equal opportunity problem. We can not assume that cars are the standard and that every other form of transportation is an “alternative” we live in the most densely populated city in the US – this isn’t Ohio. We can’t keep accommodating cards.
This suggestion, along with the one above for Registration of bikers are great ones. The big thing they lack though is how they will be enforced. Drivers, Bikers and Pedestrians who do not obey the laws are not being reprimanded or ticketed by authority, so who is on point to stop all bikers and ensure they have their registration and safety school diplomas in hand?
if only Citi (or the city) were held accountable for all the asshats that use these bikes with no regard for actual traffic laws (which bikers are just as responsible to follow as drivers). All they are doing with these installations are taking away already scarce parking and opening up pedestrians (and cars) to more accidents caused by bikers who think the rules don’t apply to them. No increased police presence to ticket the offenders, no education to the Citi riders about how to drive responsibly, not even a requirement of wearing helmets!!
hahahaha must have a lot of non law abiding bike riders reading LICPost!
Consider yourselves warned – you ride above the law, i reserve the right to throw sticks in your spokes 🙂
So if, as a pedestrian, you walk against the light it’s OK if someone throws something at YOU? What if they don’t happen to have anything to throw? Can they “reserve the right” to assault you with fists? Be considerate not everyone carries sticks or rocks.
Sadly, I tried consideration. I tried considerately telling a biker he was driving north on an avenue that goes south (after he nearly hit me). He told me to go f*ck myself. I jumped back to the curb and didn’t yell anything at the guy who thought he was in the tour de France and ran a red light through a major pedestrian crosswalk when we had the light, and I swerved my car (away from possible bike injury) when a bike rider thought that the traffic on 31st street was his own personal game of frogger. Consideration comes from both sides, and sadly the bikers never got the memo.
Also, I rarely jaywalk anymore, cause you can’t trust the bikers.
You get you biker education program off the ground, teach them some consideration for the laws and then maybe I’ll put my sticks away.
I feel your pain. I’m not sure if you are familiar with the intersection of Skillman Ave and 52nd St. but I live near there and I would say that from casual observation roughly 9 out of 10 cars blow right through the stop sign. There are horror stories enough to go around regarding reckless bikers and drivers – I run and always watch out for cars, bikes, and pedestrians. Bottom line is that no one is above the law and has the right to disregard traffic laws. Furthermore, we can restrict anyone from using the streets because of careless individuals – the auto industry would suffer if that were the case. One solution might be to require bikers to be registered and required to take a Bike Safety class.
Real shame they didn’t expand to sunnyside within the same district. Putting minimal stations under the 7 train and at the parks on skillman and greenpoint. Would have been a great way to connect the neighborhoods, increased access to the shops, waterfront and museums in lic as well create more alternative option for comuting to qbp, lic, Astoria, greenpoint and manhattan.
I fully agree. It may happen. I’m getting old waiting for it though. Bikes are good for everyone – even drivers.
If I’m reading this correctly, they’re going to install one outside of the E/M station on 44th Drive, which means they’re probably going to have to remove some parking. Not good.
We don’t have room to fully accommodate all of the cars in this city. We need to offer people other options. The new Ferry system is a great beginning. More busses will also work. Subways are the best but they take forever to build and cost billions. Bikes might be annoying but one space intended for a car can probably accommodate 10 bikes. The population is increasing so we need to put more people in the same amount of space and cars are a terrible solution for NYC.
The reality of the situation is- the cars aren’t going anywhere. The entire city can adapt to both cars and bikes. Since the cars aren’t going anywhere, they can surely find another place to put the bikes so we don’t lose parking. That’s all I’m saying. In fact, the bikes are on the sidewalk next to the Murray Park basketball court. No parking lost there.
But maybe cars SHOULD go somewhere. As the population increases the number of cars increases. Cities are for people. YOU are more important than cars. Transportation for the masses is essential to economic health. Think about smoking laws. Years ago you could smoke ANYWHERE and EVERYWHERE. Smokers would not have believed that we would be here. Cars are the same. Cars have their place for sure but those places have limits.
kind of already happening – look at the lost parking spaces and driving lanes for cars, due to the bikes and pedestrian spaces (E.g. Times Sq, Madison Sq park area, etc)
Albert, where are you from? Where did you grow up? You seem to understand very little about NYC. People in Queens and Brooklyn have traditionally owned cars. Manhattan is where a lot of people forgo the convenience. Stop talking nonsense.