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Bike Sharing in New York City Will Expand

A deal nearing completion would change Citi Bike’s management, expand its reach in the city and use a membership fee increase to improve software and customer service.

Before New York City’s bike-sharing system was introduced last year, aides to Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg mused about possible program nicknames befitting their boss.

 

“Mike’s Bikes” had a ring to it, they reasoned. “Bloomberg’s Bikes” might be even better.

Fourteen months later, Mr. Bloomberg’s successor, Bill de Blasio, has been confronted with a more consequential choice: how aggressively to embrace — and reimagine — a program that remains inextricably linked to the last administration.

After months of financial uncertainty surrounding the program, city officials are nearing a final agreement that would reshape the system’s management as it was established under Mr. Bloomberg, and bring the bikes to a wider swath of the city beginning next year, according to people involved with the discussions, who insisted on anonymity because the deal had not been completed.

The program — known by its sponsored name, Citi Bike, because the mayoral nicknames never stuck — could use the lift. Amid still-flailing software and an often overtaxed customer service operation, much of the excitement surrounding the system’s introduction last May has been dulled.

As the first anniversary arrived in May, a spate of annual members did not renew their passes. According to internal reports for Citi Bike, there were 96,318 annual members in June, down from 105,355 in May.

In the eyes of cyclists who cheered the city’s biking policies under Mr. Bloomberg, the de Blasio administration has been presented with an opportunity, one it appears poised to seize.

Daniel Luzer is GOVERNING's news editor.
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