Skip to Content
Streetsblog New York City home
Streetsblog New York City home
Log In
Bike Sharing

Bike-Share Is for Short Trips, Not Four-Hour Jaunts

One of the stranger threads to come out of yesterday's announcement that Citigroup will sponsor NYC bike-share is the complaint that it will cost a lot to take long rides on the system. The usually bike-savvy Gothamist ran the headline "CitiBike, NYC's Bike Share, Will Cost $77 For A Four-Hour Ride," and bike-commuting Reuters blogger Felix Salmon posted charts showing the expense of taking out Citi Bikes for two hours or 24 hours at a time. (Gothamist doubled down today, posting one of Salmon's graphs.)

Unless you write for a bike-hating rag like the Post, it's odd to fixate on the cost of long bike-share trips because, fundamentally, the system is designed to help people make short, utilitarian trips. Bike-share will be great if you want or need to do things like:

    • Bike commute from Baruch Houses and back every day
    • Head to the movies in Cobble Hill from your apartment in Fort Greene
    • Get from MoMA to the High Line on a day of Manhattan sightseeing
    • Shave ten minutes off your trip from Grand Central to your job on the west side

And so on.

In DC, 88 percent of bike-share trips are 30 minutes or less, and the vast majority of trips are made by subscribers who pay $75 per year for an unlimited supply of trips under 30 minutes. They are spending pennies per trip. In London, the average weekday bike-share trip is 17 minutes long, and on the weekend the average is 27 minutes.

In terms of value-per-dollar, the overlooked feature of the NYC pricing system is that subscribers who pay $95 for an annual pass will get 45 minutes per trip before fees kick in -- 50 percent more time than subscribers in DC or London.

It's true that bike-share will be terrible for leisurely, all-day rentals. But this is a feature, not a bug, of the pricing mechanism. Imagine if 50 percent of bike-share trips were four hours long. That would hugely diminish the effectiveness of the system. While all those bikes were tied up by people making recreational jaunts, they'd be unavailable to a far greater number of people who want to use the bikes for transportation. Shorter trips mean more turnover, which makes the system more useful to more people.

Stay in touch

Sign up for our free newsletter

More from Streetsblog New York City

‘Preventable’: Hit-and-Run Driver Kills Two on Third Av. Corridor Eric Adams Refuses to Make Safer

A motorist struck and killed two men on a strip where Mayor Adams recently shelved a safety redesign amid a backlash from local business interests.

July 11, 2025

Why No BRT For NYC? Two New Reports Tackle Why Your Bus Service Sucks

Years of bus priority projects barely made a dent in speeds because Big Apple leaders won't install real bus rapid transit, two recent reports argue.

July 11, 2025

Citi Bike Riders Are Pissed About Eric Adams’s 15 MPH Speed Limit

Citi Bike's new 15 mph max speed limit is a bad deal for riders and a potential threat to safety, riders said.

July 11, 2025

Friday Video: Cyclists, Check Out Your Next City

Streetfilms' Clarence Eckerson visited London earlier this summer to check in on the Big Smoke's cycling revolution.

July 11, 2025

Friday’s Headlines: Just the News Edition

We've got one more workday before we can hit the beach. Plus the news.

July 11, 2025

Council To Close Instacart Loophole, Pass Delivery Industry Regulation Bills

The City Council will vote on Monday to close the "Instacart loophole" and force all app companies to pay workers a minimum wage.

July 10, 2025
See all posts