Citi Bike roll out will soon reach these Queens neighborhoods

Citi Bikes are seen docked at a station at Carroll Street on the corner of Columbia Street this past March. Eagle photo by Lore Croghan

By Phineas Rueckert 

Citi Bike is slowly spreading across the city, according to new maps obtained by the New York Post. And in Queens, several neighborhoods that are currently underserved by bike infrastructure — Sunnyside, Maspeth, Elmhurst, Jackson Heights and Corona — will be getting Citi Bike docks by 2023. 

Apart from Sunnyside, these neighborhoods were all in “High Priority Districts” with high levels of cyclist deaths and injuries and low to medium bike lane coverage, according to a 2017 Department of Transportation bicycle safety report. Citi Bike expansion has already begun in parts of Ridgewood.

Mayor Bill de Blasio told the Post that the expansion would benefit low-income New Yorkers who are disproportionately affected by a lack of access to public transit infrastructure. “This expansion will help us build a more fair and equitable city for all New Yorkers,” he said. “Even more communities will have access to this low-cost, sustainable mode of transportation.”

A June report from the Urban Politics and Governance research group at McGill University’s School of Urban Planning, low-income New Yorkers were less likely to have access to bike share infrastructure. 

All five neighborhoods that will get new Citi Bike infrastructure were either at or above the average poverty level for Queens, according to the most recent New York City Community Health Profiles. 

Outside of Queens, Citi Bike will also expand to neighborhoods in the Bronx (Mott Haven, Melrose, Port Morris, Highbridge, Claremont, Morrisania, Longwood, Concourse and Mount Eden); Brooklyn (Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brownsville, Crown Heights, Prospect Lefferts Gardens, East Flatbush, Sunset Park, South Slope, Windsor Terrace, Prospect Park South and Kensington); and Manhattan (Harlem, Hamilton Heights, Sugar Hill, Washington Heights and Inwood).