Updated Bike-Share Map Appears to Show Phased Rollout Plan

We’ve known since December that Hurricane Sandy shrank the initial rollout of bike-share from 420 stations to 293, with an expansion promised by the end of 2013. We also knew that this meant the service area would, at first, not include Long Island City and parts of north Brooklyn. We just didn’t know exactly where.

Now, an updated bike-share map (via reader @J_uptown) on DOT’s website shows that the initial rollout will encompass Manhattan south of Central Park and an area of Brooklyn bounded roughly by Atlantic Avenue, Nostrand Avenue, Flushing Avenue, and the East River. The second phase will include LIC, Greenpoint, Williamsburg, and Bedford Stuyvesant east of Nostrand Avenue. Three stations in Manhattan, at Pier 42, on 60th Street near First Avenue, and on Fifth Avenue at 63rd Street, are also part of the second phase.

Site selection for a third phase, which would bring the system up to the original goal of 10,000 bikes at 600 stations, is still in progress, according to the DOT site, and would include Manhattan up to 79th Street, Sunnyside in Queens, and Cobble Hill, Park Slope, Prospect Heights, and Crown Heights south of Atlantic Avenue in Brooklyn. Those stations aren’t expected to be added this year, judging by DOT’s December announcement.

At a City Council transportation committee meeting earlier this month, DOT staff said that rollout is scheduled for the spring. DOT has told community boards to expect to see stations on the street beginning sometime in April (launch isn’t expected before May — it takes a few weeks to set up all the stations), and some are already appearing ready for deployment.