New Citi Bike Stations Arrive in Harlem and Astoria

Citi Bike’s 2017 expansion is underway in Harlem and Astoria.

Station installation began in Harlem on September 12 and in Astoria last Friday. The Harlem expansion is mostly complete, with 34 of 49 planned stations now active on the Citi Bike system map, while western Queens is just beginning to get its complement of bikes. Expansion has yet to start in Prospect Heights and parts of Crown Heights, where a few dozen stations are slated to be installed.

All told, this year Citi Bike is adding 140 new stations and 2,000 bikes, increasing the size of the system by about 20 percent.

Negotiations are currently underway between the city and Citi Bike operator Motivate for another phase of expansion. The contours of that deal reported involve adding 6,000 bikes at no cost to the city, with two-thirds of those going to areas not currently within the service area.

Even if that deal gets finalized, it wouldn’t be enough to reach many neighborhoods where bike-share would be well-used. An x factor in this equation is the potential for new dockless bike-share companies to expand access. Last month, DOT said it’s still working out how the new services should fit into NYC’s bike-share offerings.