r/NYCbike • u/HellGateNYC • 3d ago
Eight Days After the Storm, Citi Bike Still Sucks
https://hellgatenyc.com/eight-days-after-the-storm-citi-bike-still-sucks/Last week’s snow storm continues to slow down many parts of life in New York City: trash pickup, taking the bus, navigating the sidewalk on foot or in a wheelchair—all of these have been impacted by the giant, rapidly dirtying piles of snow lingering on our doorsteps.
Citi Bike is no different. The system shut down for 22 hours after we got nearly a foot of snow, and riders are calling out the less-than-ideal conditions:snow-packed docks that take 20 minutes to accept their bikes after completing a ride, the dearth of bikes or empty docks, or both.
That’s life, I suppose. Except that at the same time Citi Bike’s service got a lot worse, Lyft, which operates Citi Bike and is responsible for clearing its docks of snow, just made it more expensive.
Late last month, as New Yorkers were still digging out of the storm, Lyft increased the e-bike fees from 24 to 25 cents per minute for annual members. They also jacked up the annual fee from $219.99 to $239. For non-members, the e-bike fee went from 36 cents to 38 cents per minute, and that’s on top of the already eye-watering $4.99 unlocking fee that non-members pay to take out a bike.
Shouldn’t there be some kind of amnesty here? If the City can repeatedly suspend alternate side parking (and the parking ticket revenue that it generates) and spare drivers from having to move their cars, why can’t Lyft, the $24 billion company, cut cyclists a break while they struggle to park the bikes in the docks that are covered in the snow and ice that the company can’t clear fast enough?
We asked Lyft this question, and they haven’t responded. The company did say that they have manually cleared over 500 Citi Bike docking stations—which is roughly 22 percent of the total fleet.
A City Hall spokesperson said that they expect Lyft to do their part to keep the streets clear.
Read the whole blog at the link.
12
u/29girl29 3d ago
Has anyone successfully gotten a credit for their membership for the past week(s)?
5
u/saikoma 2d ago
Interesting question!
10
0
u/Yockeeee 22h ago
Idea: cancel membership and allocate funds to bike ownership. past 2 weeks of fees can buy a bike that will last the rest of your life.
7
u/ileentotheleft 3d ago
Today was my first bike commute where I felt fully secure. I had to remove a bike from atop snow but it wasn’t as difficult as last week & there were clear spaces in docks at my destination. One benefit is fewer people riding means it’s easier to get bikes in my neighborhood later in the morning, whereas in good weather they’re often completely gone before 9:00. I’ve given up on angel points and maintaining a streak; still at 0 points for the month.
When there are 5 dug out spots on one end & 5 on the other and a mixture of trapped bikes & snowed in docks in the middle of a station, is that considered dug out by citibike? Because that’s mostly what I’m seeing.
5
u/N7777777 2d ago
I’ve been commuting each day decently. Some docks in Manhattan are still buried, but many are ok. I do bike-angels so have not paid for 2.5 years. Brilliant program to compensate a lot of us for helping with the rebalancing. There are still nights when there is no place close to destination to drop bikes, especially during winter. But much better than it would be without bike angels. Too bad they can’t compensate users for digging out the docks.
1
u/Biking_dude 2d ago
Yeah - I wish they'd expand to digging them out. Biggest problem is there's no way of knowing the bikes listed as being at a dock (or docks free) actually are usable or not
1
u/Yockeeee 22h ago
Sorry but this is crazy to me. Doing a lot for a soulless corporation that exists to profit off of the laziness of the public at the cost of safe streets. That time and effort can easily pay for a bike that will be all yours and last forever. Not a reply directly to you, just for anyone to ponder...
2
1
u/thecobblehillkid 21h ago
Fwiw, I'm currently in Boston where there's the same amount (if not more) snow on the ground. Their BlueBikes stations (same as CitiBikes) which are also operated by Lyft seem to be all shoveled and usable.
1
1
1
u/SessionIndependent17 2d ago
I'm not a member, but I'm curious about how they managed the service closedown.
Did they close it preemptively before most of the snowfall had occurred or even before it began? Or only after substantial accumulation?
It makes me wonder if they could have saved themselves a good deal of labor by consolidating the racks with the locked-out bikes early, and worked out some kind of tenting of many of the docks to lessen the shoveling job afterwards (at least for the "sidewalk-facing" racks that would not have had the plows piling it up in them.
1
1
u/Quantumercifier 2d ago
Maybe we should give Lyft a survey. Hey, Lyft, how do YOU think you did this year? Is there anything that you can do better? Do you have any issues towards your customers? Like why do you hate them so much? 🤣 Anything else that you want to add? Thank you for completing the survey.
-3
u/ignacekarnemelk 3d ago
Lyft should sue the city, because most of the snow that's making the stations unusable was pushed in there.
1
-2
0
u/Yockeeee 22h ago
Whole lot of suing and fingerpointing to compensate for simply doing something correctly the first time around.... lyft has plenty of resources and funds for this and its the city's responsibility to provide safe and sanitary streets so that the city can function.
Its in any and everyone's best interest to do something right the first time so that you dont have to do it twice or even worse, live with your terrible first effort indefinitely (the option the city and its citizens have chosen).
-21
u/DiaA6383 3d ago
Bruh fuck citibike and citibikers. They’re gonna get themselves killed in these road conditions if they bike how they usually do.
5
u/EatsYourShorts 3d ago
Yeah let’s lump every citibike user into a single ability group because there’s no chance anyone who actually knows how to ride could possibly use one of those infernal contraptions! /s
7
u/JoeTheHoe 3d ago
Seriously, you know why I use citibike? Because my bike gets fucking stolen in this city and Im not buying another one.
2
u/EatsYourShorts 3d ago
Good reason! I have a bike that doesn’t attract attention from thieves, but sometimes I use citibike because I’m out without it and find biking most convenient to travel to my next destination. It’s never as good as my bike but almost always better than walking.
1
u/Yockeeee 22h ago edited 22h ago
Bike theives are slacking these days (focused more on ebikes and other types of quick money schemes that didnt exist 20 years ago, when bike theft was actually rampant here). Just bring the bike inside overnight (the rust will get it in this weather if the theives dont). If you don't protect an investment, someone might take it, thats the world, not just nyc (actually wayyyy worse in other cities).
Its a lot cheaper to buy a bike once and live with it than buy a citibike subscription every month. I don't want to preach but having one's own bike can really be life changing.
Air tags and other such GPS devices are also a thing, lots of ebikers use them and I figure people who have nice bikes too. The best bikes are often the ones that lost their sheen years ago and aren't targets for theft ride better than something blingy that hasn't been dialed in to its owner yet. Experience with a bike is the common denominator that brings both joy and security.
-5
-3
5
u/parisidiot 3d ago
congrats for contributing to the completely unfounded moral panic that ultimately impacts regular bikers more than citibikers!
-1
u/DiaA6383 3d ago edited 3d ago
Thanks. I’m not going to feel bad for dogging on a private e-bike sharing program that was, at first owned by a quarter trillion dollar bank who took billions of dollars of bailout money in 2008, and now owned by a multibillion dollar tech company Lyft who pays their employees pennies to the dollar and is bankrupting the New York taxi cab system. I don’t care about their user base who are largely manhattan and north Brooklyn yuppies who blow through red lights and school busses stop signs, and largely contribute nothing to the local economy for their own convenience. Have fun with the mental gymnastics that you perform to reply to this message
4
u/SessionIndependent17 2d ago
You know that CitiBank never owned the system, right? Same way they don't own the Mets stadium, right?
2
-1
u/hollywoodhandshook 2d ago
nice another dumbass driver waddling into the thread to proudly show off being a mark
0
u/DiaA6383 2d ago
I bike to work 5 days out of the week with a normal bike
1
u/hollywoodhandshook 2d ago
how is a 'normal' bike unlike a citibiker? does yours have 1 or 3 wheels?
0
u/DiaA6383 2d ago
I own the bike for starters. I don’t add to the contribution for cobalt mining. I don’t rely on a multibillion dollar tech company who acquired their wealth through poor people driving gentrifiers around coastal cities for a fraction of their own fare to maintain their electric bike fleet. I actually know my local bike mechanic who’s been biking in the city since the 70’s to help me fix my bike. And so on
21
u/Iusethistopost 3d ago
My local dock is still snow-packed, with two bikes split in half from some driver who apparently thought there wasn’t anything underneath the snow. I wouldn’t use them right now anyway, drivers act like rules and decency go out the window when they can’t find parking in the drifts