Citi Bike’s expansion in Bushwick and Ridgewood rolls out this month

Prepare to see more Citi Bikes in Brooklyn and Queens: Starting next week, the bike-sharing service will start installing new docks throughout Bushwick and Ridgewood, with 85 new docks ultimately landing in those neighborhoods in the next few months.

While Citi Bike did not provide an exact list of station locations, they’ll be placed in an area that’s bounded by Broadway to the south, Forest Avenue and the Newtown Creek to the north, and the Broadway Junction transit hub to the east.

“As Citi Bike begins the exciting process of doubling its service area, we are thrilled to bring new stations to Bushwick and Ridgewood this year,” DOT commissioner Polly Trottenberg said in a statement. “Citi Bike is regularly shattering ridership records, as more New Yorkers and visitors alike discover what is, hands down, one of the most fun, healthiest, and sustainable ways to get around the city. … We are very excited about this latest development and cannot wait to add more new neighborhoods in 2020 and beyond.”

Citi Bike had what was arguably its best summer ever, with the bike-sharing program recording its highest ever number of daily trips—more than 91,000—earlier this month, and other ridership records set in August. And according to Streetsblog, there were more than 19 million Citi Bike trips in the year between July 2018 and the end of this June—a major show of New Yorkers’ faith in the system.

(Those numbers do, as Streetsblog pointed out, make one wonder if/when the city might consider public subsidies for the system, which could help propel its expansion into the outer-boroughs.)

The Bushwick/Ridgewood rollout is just one element of Citi Bike’s larger expansion throughout the city: In the coming months, the company and the DOT will begin outreach in Manhattan up to 155th Street and the South Bronx, where the bikes are expected to drop next. The expansion comes as part of a $100 million commitment by Citi Bike’s new owner, Lyft, to double the program’s geographic reach and triple the size of its fleet from some 13,000 to 40,000 bikes by 2023.

The company is also still working on bringing its e-bike fleet, which was grounded over safety concerns, back to city streets this fall, according to a spokesperson.