Ever since they were introduced to our fine city, people have been asking two questions: When will someone die on one, and when will the service expand to be useful to more than a few people in Manhattan. We can’t answer the dying thing, but we can share the news that Citi Bike announced a huge expansion program today, with more bikes coming to Bed-Stuy, bikes finally coming to Greenpoint in 2015 and also a rate hike. Which is fair since at least it comes with 6,000 more bikes eventually. Hence, bike share’s new slogan, “Citi Bike: Possibly useful in Brooklyn soon!”
The announcement was made now that Citi Bike has been bought by REQX Ventures, which has been on the table for a few months now. As per the map that you can see below, Citi Bike will be moving into Greenpoint and further north and east in Williamsburg, as well as east in Bed-Stuy. The plan, according to Citi Bike, is to have those stations installed by in 2015, so you’ve got time to determine whether you want to toss your bike in the river and use Citi Bike from now on (don’t do that).
After the first expansion, the plan is to put bikes in Crown Heights, Prospect Heights, Red Hook and Park Slope, with an additional 6,000 bikes in the system. The only problem for you is that it means you somehow have to find somewhere cheap enough to live around here to still be in Brooklyn by 2017.
The other problem is that the feared rate hike is coming, with a yearly membership going from $95 to $149. Which, as Citi Bike argues in their blog post, is just a little bit pricer than a monthly MetroCard, so just focus on how you get a year of service for that and not how it’s kinda fucked that one month of riding the subway costs so much. The rate hike isn’t here yet though, so you can still get a $95 membership before it kicks in. Still, despite the rent increase, this is good news for people in Greenpoint, who won’t be totally forsaken by transit options next time the G shuts down for a weekend. Or a night. Or a few weekends and nights.