CitiBike is on ice.
Huge Apple ridership has plummeted for the Lyft-owned bike-sharing service after lethal Winter Storm Fern dumped over a foot of snow on the town – with nearly all of stations nonetheless unusable attributable to snow buildup greater than per week later, The Publish has realized.
“A lot of the snow wasn’t cleaned up,” fumed bike owner Emily Oberlin, who bikes each day from Grand Central Station to her nonprofit job in Hell’s Kitchen.
Oberlin, 36, mentioned she needed to search a number of “inaccessible” trash- or snow-covered docking stations earlier than discovering a spot to park an e-bike.
Solely about 500 of CitiBike’s 2,925 lively stations throughout the boroughs – or simply 17% – have been cleaned by the corporate as of Tuesday, a rep mentioned.
The snow has grow to be an icy impediment even at docking stations which can be out there, with websites coated in sheets of harmful ice and several other ft of snow that make it tougher for cyclists to return their journey.
“Docks in FiDi have a lot snow packed in them that the bikes don’t match,” one X person wrote Tuesday. “We’re spending further minutes on the top of the journey attempting to shove the bike in and finish the journey. Repair this.”
“20 minutes to dock this bike,” one other wrote in a Sunday night time publish, accompanied by a photograph of a CitiBike shoved right into a snow-covered mess.
One docking station at West forty fifth Avenue & Eighth Avenue on Wednesday was nearly utterly submerged in residential recycling, as Sanitation Division pickup stays delayed because of the snowfall that walloped Gotham greater than 10 days prior.
The information comes as CitiBike hiked its charges final month for the fifth 12 months in a row, demanding 9% larger membership charges since 2025. The corporate blamed tariffs and rising working prices from insurance coverage to subject staffing for the sudden value leap.
“It’s not likely making sense with the costs are going up,” CitiBike person Mayo Martinez advised The Publish, “so I’d say that’s actually what’s pulling individuals away.
“You’re not getting the service [you pay for],” Martinez, 28, added. “You might be elevating up the costs, however you aren’t actually doing a lot for the purchasers.”
CitiBike, which touted file ridership final 12 months, reported a mean of 68,391 rides per day in January 2025 (on par with final month’s each day common of 69,040 rides per day) – however solely logged 125,000 rides in complete since Jan. twenty fifth’s monster snowfall.
“The snowstorm [and cold temperatures] have impacted our ridership,” a Lyft rep advised The Publish, noting the service closed for just below 24 hours in the course of the storm’s peak from Jan. 25 to 26.
“We’re persevering with lively snow elimination operations and dealing to clear further stations as situations enable,” the rep added.
“Our precedence is making certain secure entry for riders all through the town.”
