NYC Citi Bike Program Hits 10 Million Trip Milestone For 2015
NEW YORK (CBSNewYork/AP) -- New York City's bike share program is eclipsing 10 million trips for 2015.
Officials said the milestone trip was taken at 1:08 p.m. on Thursday, New Year's Eve. Ridership this year has increased 24 percent over 2014.
The program, known as Citi Bike, has the highest ridership of any bike share program in the nation. Its ridership is on par with London and Mexico City. Only Paris has a bigger program.
"New York has really the biggest and best bike share in the nation," Dani Simons, spokeswoman for Motivate, which operates the program, told WCBS 880's Ginny Kosola.
The program started in New York City in 2013, with about 6,000 bikes available for riders. Ridership and bike availability has expanded into uptown Manhattan on both the Upper East and Upper West sides, and in Long Island City, Williamsburg, Greenpoint, and Bedford-Stuyvesant.
Citi Bike hopes to expand into Harlem, Astoria, Prospect Heights, Crown Heights, Park Slope, Carroll Gardens, Boerum Hill, Cobble Hill, Red Hook and Gowanus by 2017. The number of bikes will increase to 12,000.
Officials said there were seven days in 2015 when there were more than 50,000 trips, including two during Pope Francis' visit in September.
The milestone was announced Thursday by Mayor Bill de Blasio, Citi executive Edward Skyler and Jay Walder, president and CEO of Motivate.
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