After the pandemic broke out, zipping through the city on two wheels became more popular than ever in New York City.
Citi Bike, a privately owned public bicycle sharing system, hit a single day ridership record of 135,005 rides on September 11, 2021. On average, each bike was used over five times per day in the same month, according to the company's monthly report.
Here are analysis and mapping of how Citi Bike is used in September 2020 and September 2021. Data for each time period are available from here.
Below are the maps that illustrate the location of Citi Bike stations. Each color represents the difference between the number of trips that started and finished at that station. Those with pink dots are stations with more customers starting their trips (above median: -4 in 2020 and 2 in 2021), while those with green dots have more customers ending their trips (below median). Darker pink or green dots represent stations with particularly high numbers of trip starts and trip ends, based on the upper/lower quantile. (Note: Darker pink = the difference between the number of starting and ending trip at the station is above 8 in 2020, and above 15 in 2021. Darker green = below -17 in 2020, and below -11 in 2021)
The dots distribution shows that there are more stations in September 2021, particularly in Inwood(Manhattan), the North Bronx, and Sunset Park, Brooklyn. According to Citi Bike, approximately 400 more active stations were added between September 2020 and September 2021.
The color distribution suggests that more customers end their trips in Lower Manhattan and Red Hook, Brooklyn.