Citi Bike has pedaled past another milestone, marking its 50 millionth ride since the bike-sharing service launched in May 2013, Mayor Bill deBlasio announced this week.
This year, Citi Bike is on track to break last year’s record of 14 million rides with a 19 percent increase in ridership so far this year.
Citi Bike is also in the midsts of its fall expansion that will double the bikesharing system in size since 2014, from 6,000 bikes to 12,000.
“In 2014, we committed to saving a struggling bike-share system and having it expand to more New York City communities,” de Blasio said in a statement. “In almost three years since, the results speak for themselves: from Harlem to Red Hook, from Astoria to Bed-Stuy, those blue bikes have now become part of the fabric of our city — and we can now look forward to the 100 millionth ride.”
As part of its 2017 expansion, Citi Bike is setting up 27 docking stations in Crown Heights and Prospect Heights that will begin to be installed as soon as Friday, DNAinfo reported. The fall expansion includes adding stations in Harlem, Astoria and Long Island City as well.
Jay Walder, President and CEO of Motivate, the company that operates Citi Bike said in a statement that when the program first launched in New York, “50 million rides seemed like an impossible goal.”
“Today, Citi Bike is a crucial component of our transportation network as more New Yorkers and visitors than ever take to two wheels,” he said.
Daily, those blue bikes go on more than 60,000 rides in peak season. On Sept. 12, Citi BIke riders set another record for daily ridership with 74,428 trips. Since the system’s launch, Citi Bike riders have pedaled 102,366,046 miles and offset 53,230,343.92 pounds of carbon and counting, according to the city.
