City will review and select ideas to complement Citi Bike system by bringing bike sharing to more outer-borough neighborhoods, including in the Bronx and on Staten Island
Mayor Bill de Blasio announced that the NYC Department of Transportation is today releasing a Request for Expressions of Interest aimed at bringing bike sharing to outer-borough neighborhoods that Citi Bike has not yet reached — including in the Bronx and on Staten Island. The RFEI seeks innovative companies and ideas around next-generation “dockless” public bike share systems. The City will continue to support and strengthen Citi Bike, and prioritize new systems that complement existing service. Citi Bike has had more than 53.5 million trips since its launch in 2013.
“New Yorkers have embraced public bike sharing faster than anyone expected. These past four years, we’ve strengthened Citi Bike and doubled its size. Now it’s time to take the next big step and bring safe, reliable and affordable bike sharing to even more of the city,” said Mayor Bill de Blasio.
“Citi Bike has been a unparalleled success story in providing New Yorkers affordable, safe and green transportation, but as we are learning from around the U.S. and the world, the next generation of bikeshare in New York City may not even require that the bikes themselves be parked in docks,” said DOT Commissioner Polly Trottenberg. “With so many companies anxious to prove their skills in serving our City’s diverse, demanding and lucrative market, this RFEI allows us to create different pilots and evaluate what works best, allowing us to move far beyond the limited neighborhoods in Manhattan, Brooklyn and Queens that Citi Bike now so ably serves.”
The RFEI seeks ideas from innovative companies that can provide additional bike sharing outside of the current Citi Bike service area. This will ensure new systems do not undermine current bike share service, and bring bike share to underserved areas.
The new RFEI will allow the City to evaluate emerging dockless models for bike share service that have lower capital and operating costs and may help bring bike share service to more outer borough neighborhoods, at a faster rate, than is possible under the current model for Citi Bike expansion. The priorities of the new RFEI will include:
· Exploring the concepts of “dockless” models for providing bike share services and investigate the feasibility of instituting such options in areas of New York City not currently served by the City’s existing Citi Bike Program.
· Examining the practicality of a “free-locking” bike share in New York City. Free-locking bicycles include mechanisms that unlock bikes via mobile phone and render them inoperable when not in use. They are otherwise free-standing, i.e. not locked to a dock, bike rack, or any other fixed object.
· Seeing that dockless bike share operations are safe for both riders and pedestrians, and that vendors can ensure their bikes do not obstruct other street and sidewalk uses.
· Examining vendors’ plans and capabilities for keeping bicycles within a designated service area.
· Determining standards for “rebalancing” (making sure bikes are evenly distributed across a service area to meet community demand) ahead of any pilot launch.
· Exploring bike share models that are both sustainable and affordable for New Yorkers. (In other American cities with dockless systems, trips are often priced at $1 per 30-minute ride.)
The RFEI defines a dockless system as a network of publicly available bicycles with technology that allows for all essential system and locking components to be installed in the bicycles themselves, and thus eliminates the need for docking stations. Bikes may be parked and rented from any point within the service area boundary where bicycle parking is permitted. Bicycles may also be required to meet functional standards set by DOT and the City would define standards for any permissible parking areas as part of its role in prioritizing the safe and orderly management of public space.
The RFEI could be followed by pilots that would allow the City to determine the practicality of the service, evaluate individual vendors and their equipment, observe how multiple operators interact and coordinate in area served by multiple vendors, and monitor the rates at which New Yorkers adapt to dockless formats.
"The people of The Bronx have shown incredible enthusiasm for bike sharing programs, and this RFEI represents an excellent opportunity to explore and examine innovative new ideas that could finally make bike sharing a reality in our borough,” said Bronx Borough President Ruben Diaz Jr. “As we continue to advocate for the expansion of Citi Bike to The Bronx we should explore other potential bike sharing possibilities that could also meet the demand of Bronxites who patiently wait for such opportunities to come to our borough. I look forward to seeing the responses to this RFEI, and I will continue to work with partners at all levels to bring bike sharing to The Bronx."
Since its arrival in 2013, bike share has proven an effective and popular component of advancing the City’s transportation, traffic safety and sustainability goals, alongside the de Blasio Administration’s commitment to double cycling by 2020. More than 60,000 Citi Bike trips are taken per day during peak season. Annual Citi Bike subscriptions stand at over 130,000.
The newest RFEI comes as New York City nears full implementation of the de Blasio administration’s expansion of Citi Bike, which in 2017 has expanded its reach to Upper Manhattan, brownstone Brooklyn and into Long Island City and Astoria in Queens. In 2014, Administration officials created a new management structure for Citi Bike, bringing in Motivate, the company that has stabilized and improved Citi Bike, doubled its size to 12,000 bikes and 750 stations. Supporting and enhancing existing Citi Bike service remains among the City’s top priorities.
The RFEI can be found here. For more information on New York City’s bike share system please go to www.nyc.gov/bikeshare
