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August 15, 2013- The NY Times is reporting on the problems caused by the success of the Citi Bike program, which is how some racks are empty of bikes while others are too full. The program is using box trucks to shuffle bikes around, but this is not working too well.
Related, a new risk to nighttime Citi Biking in Battery Park is that one can leave a station, bike around, then come back to home-base to find the rack full. It’s not fun to have to park a bike a mile away and walk home.
Hopefully, the Citi Bike company gets the kinks worked out.
Have you been stranded while Citi Biking? Feel free to post your comments.
I have noticed a number of parked bikes with flat tires. Also, one lady I saw riding near WFC with a flat and not realizing it.
This is a definite problem just within the immediate area. I work in the Financial District and live just south of Thames in BPC. The Thames rack is frequently empty in the morning and completely full in the evening. Conversely, the racks in FiDi have the opposite issue where they are sometimes full in the morning, but may empty out by 6pm. It seems the weather can play into this as well. It rained this Monday morning and that evening there seemed to be a more severe shortage of bikes in FiDi than usual. It can be a little frustrating, but I think its already better than the first few weeks the program was live. I would like to see their app reflect better information about the status of racks. I’ve walked out of the way to reach a rack the app indicates has bikes only to find it empty. Overall I’m think CitiBike has been great.
Agree. Citi Bikes rock, but tweeks needed
I hesitate to complain as they have improved much from the beginning and I’m sure they are aware of the issue as I discussed with support team. I am so addicted to using! Try to keep the shortages in mind when planning a trip. Also, there is an app that is 10x better than the “official” app call NYC Bike Share.