Introducing Bike Share!
Hey everyone,
If you’ve been in the city, you’ve probably seen these things all over the place:
Well pretty soon, these posts are going to be full of these:
Because the Bike share program is officially coming to New York City! For those that don’t know, the New York Bike Share Program (or Citi Bike) is a city wide bike rental system sponsored by Citi Bank. At these stations in Manhattan, Brooklyn and Queens, people can unlock a bike, ride to their destination, and lock it up at any other station. This post is meant to give you a breakdown on the details and rules on making Citi Bike work for you!
How Does It Work?
You can buy short-term passes (24-hour or 7-day) from any of the bike stations, or you can purchase an annual membership from the Citi Bike website (not yet available). With these passes, you receive a PIN-number which you can use to unlock any of the docked bikes. Once the bike is out, just get on and go!
Keep in mind, however, that with the short-term passes, you can only use the bike for 30 minutes at a time. The limit for annual members is 45 minutes. If you go over this time, you’ll have to pay a small fee (details on that later). To reset your time, simply lock up the bike at a new station, then grab another bike!
Where Are The Stations?
On the Citi Bike website is a map of all the stations in the city. Since the bikes aren’t available yet, all the stations are represented with yellow “planned” bubbles. These stations go from 59th Street and down in Manhattan, as well as Downtown Brooklyn and some parts of North Brooklyn. Each station also has a map of other nearby locations. Plus, there’s an app in the works to pinpoint all the stations near you!
How Much Does It Cost?
24-hour passes will cost $9.95 plus tax. 7-day passes will be $25 plus tax. These passes can both be purchased at any of the stations. For either of these, however, the machine takes a $101 security deposit to make sure you can pay late fees (if necessary). Like I said before, these passes will have a 30-minute limit for each time you unlock a bike, but you can take a bike an unlimited amount of times within your time span. If you bring it to a station late, here are the charges for these passes:
up to 30 minutes: $0
30-60 minutes: $4.00
60-90 minutes: $13.00
Every additional 30 minutes: +$12.00
The annual membership, which I believe is a much better deal, is $95 plus tax. These passes will be available for purchase on the website, although I will update you on exactly how when they’re available. These passes allow for 45 minutes of riding time per undocking, don’t require a security deposit, and have cheaper late fees.
up to 45 minutes: $0
45-75 minutes: $2.50
75-105 minutes: $9.00
Every additional 30 minutes: +$9.00
Unfortunately, the Citi Bike website doesn’t yet have an official launch date for the bikes, but I’m predicting a late May/Early June launch with the speed that they’ve been installing the stations. Until then, you can check out their website for more info, as well as these events for a demonstration of the bikes. Once they launch, I’ll be sure to update you all on the bike itself!
Until then, happy riding!
-Eddie