Wednesday’s Headlines: Citi Bike By the Numbers Edition

Haters of Citi Bike — you know, the people who scream, "Those docks are taking my parking!" — are really going to detest the new website that launched yesterday.

"Citi Bike Data" shows in painstaking, dock-by-dock detail just how essential the bike share system has become to New Yorkers — and how much more useful each individual station is than the one or two "parking" spaces that some of them occupy.

From the data you learn the macro data, such as that docks in Manhattan have been used ("used" meaning a bike was locked or unlocked there) more than 378 million times since the program launched in 2013. And docks in the Bronx have been used 6,989,596 times since May 2020, or 4,614 times per day.

And you can even get data for each specific dock:

• A dock at 11th Avenue and W. 27th Street in Manhattan has been used 1,341,960 times since May 2013 — and was used an average of 648 times per day this June!
• The dock at 74th Street and 37th Avenue in the heart of Jackson Heights's busy commercial district has been used 24,426 times since it was installed in August 2023. That's 74 potential shoppers per day perhaps not using a car!
• A dock at 67th Avenue and Fresh Pond Road in the heart of Council Member Bob Holden's district has been used 14,227 times since January 2023, or 27 times per day!
• And, most important, the dock near my apartment in Brooklyn has been used 665,757 times since September 2016, or 233 times per day!

The website was created by Zack Youngren, who said he was indeed inspired by hearing Citi Bike opponents at community board meetings complain about needing to leave their cars for days on end, comments typically punctuated with, "There's a Citi Bike dock in front of my apartment that is never being used!"

"So I did some work rolling up [publicly available Citi Bike] data into a spreadsheet which showed that, actually, the docks are being used quite a bit," Youngren told Streetsblog. "In fact, they provide value to far more users per day than a commensurate amount of parking spaces would."

Activists love having access to all that juicy data.

"This tool show us that New York City's bike share is a massive success,," said Noel Hidalgo, Citi Bike member 711 and the executive director of BetaNYC, which did not develop the Citi Bike data website. "Sure, you can find online trolls posting photos of empty bike share stations, but the data doesn't lie — we need more dedicated, safe micro mobility infrastructure across the city. With increasing congestion caused by the governor's action [to cancel congestion pricing], we may need to outfit every first responder with a free bike membership so they can get around the city promptly."

In other news from a sweaty day:

• Car culture is so omnipresent that many people don't even question its fundamental chokehold on our cognition. Today's evidence: The Brooklyn Paper heralded the first Sonic drive-through window in the borough, yet failed to consider the collateral damage: Last year in East New York, where the new car-attracting window will be located, more than 1,350 people were injured by car drivers, or almost four people every day. Pro tip for young journalists: Some news is also bad news.
• Another pro tip: On the hottest day of the year, do some shoe-leather reporting on how Americans have set the world on fire and are happy to watch it burn:

• Speaking of the heat, amNY offered a survival guide for the subway.
• The West Side Rag seemed to have issues with our coverage of two positive e-bike and moped bills signed by Gov. Hochul last week. Not sure why.
• We were happy to see Hell Gate take on the city's Stipulated Fine Program, which cuts a break to scofflaw trucking companies — a subject we've covered at length.
• If you're really into train art, check out this new exhibit from the Peter and Christine Mosse Collection of Railroad Art at Hirschl and Adler on East 57th Street.
• Who knew that cyclist Lebron James was also a good basketball player? (GQ)
• Did you see that tweet showing New York City pols cheering the news that the Big Apple is the best city in the world? Yes, it's true that we got the highest overall score among the Oxford Economics Global Cities Index's 27 indicators in the five categories (economics, human capital, quality of life, environment and governance). But look closer and there's nothing to cheer about: We only got a top score in economics. But we trailed true world capitals in human capital (fourth behind London, Tokyo and Riyadh), governance (not even in the top 10), quality of life (not even in the top 10) and the environment (not even in the top 10). Check it out here.
• Speaking of New York's terrible environment, fighting congestion pricing may just help opponent Rep. Josh Gottheimer get elected governor. (NJ Globe)
• Meanwhile, amNY (in an editorial and a news story) pointed out a pretty big flaw in Gov. Hochul's cancelation of congestion pricing. ...

• ... And so did the Times, with a story about $1 billion in wasted money spent in preparation for the tolling regime. ...
• ... Also, herre's our running list of all the problems accruing because of Hochul's decision: