Citi Bike Expands To The Bronx And Upper Manhattan, As Lyft Lays Off Workers

Citi Bike will move ahead with a planned expansion to the Bronx and Harlem, as the bike-share company's operator Lyft announced on Wednesday that they will lay off more than 15 percent of its staff.

The northern expansion of Citi Bike is set to begin on May 4th, and will include more than 100 new stations by the end of July, according to a Lyft spokesperson. Among the new docking points will be two stations outside Lincoln Hospital in the South Bronx and the Harlem Hospital Center — part of an effort to meet an apparent spike in demand for bikes among frontline workers.

During the first week of April, the system's most popular docking station was located at 1st Avenue and 68th Street, near three major hospitals. That same station was the 31st most popular before the pandemic, the spokesperson said. The popularity of other stations near hospitals, such as Mount Sinai Beth Israel and Mount Sinai West, have shot up in recent weeks as well.

“Many New Yorkers who need to complete essential trips are relying upon Citi Bike during this unprecedented moment, and we are proud to expand Citi Bike service to more neighborhoods in Upper Manhattan and the Bronx beginning next week,” said Caroline Samponaro, the head of micro-mobility and transit policy at Lyft.

The new stations were announced this past summer as part of Lyft's phase three expansion, which will double the system's current footprint and bring the bike-share network deeper into Queens and Brooklyn by 2023.

The Bronx stations, the borough's first, will be located in Mott Haven, Melrose, and Port Morris — followed by additional expansions into Highbridge, Claremont, Morrisania, Longwood, Concourse, and Mt. Eden at a yet-to-be-announced date.

Citi Bike's current boundary will also expand to 155th Street in Manhattan, up from its current edge of 130th. (Final plans for the Manhattan sites were presented by individual Community Boards 9, 10, 11.)

The DOT-announced expansion comes as Lyft revealed on Wednesday they will lay off 17 percent of staff, totaling nearly 1,000 employees, as a result of the COVID-19 crisis. The layoffs will include staffers who worked on Citi Bike, Gothamist has learned.

A spokesperson for Lyft said the layoffs would not impact the quality of bike-share service offered by the company.