It’s official: Citi Bikes coming to Vannie, Marble Hill

By 2024 if you live in northwest Bronx east of Irwin Avenue, you can hop onto a public bicycle via the Citi Bike program.

The city’s transportation department aims to expand Citi Bikes into the Bronx as it is growing in popularity and is owned by ride-share company Lyft which funded the program for $100 million.

The bike share company allows users to rent bicycles from docks installed on the sidewalk or the street.

From west of the Jerome Park reservoir, the bike stations will branch out to several locations such as entrances of Van Cortlandt Park and near the Marble Hill Metro-North train station. There will be about 27 available docks for bikes in total.

Meanwhile, it will not reach the other sections of greater Riverdale, such as Riverdale, North Riverdale, and Fieldston, which was announced officially in the transportation department’s first proposal of the program at the Community Board 8 traffic and transportation committee meeting Thursday.

Kelli Buford, chair of the transportation committee, questioned Lisa Morasco, the city’s senior planner in the original proposal in March, for leaving Riverdale out of the proposed Citi Bike rollout.

“When we created these borders with several different stakeholders, Riverdale was not on the expansion area. We can share those boundaries with you but we were not going to Riverdale,” Morasco said in March.

Morasco continued to clarify that Riverdale was not an option as the agency has “borders.” At Thursday’s meeting, Sam Hope, the bike share city planner for the agency, said the plan was determined in a contract several years ago as this is a phase three plan announced in 2019 under then-Mayor Bill de Blasio, tripling the number of bikes citywide to 40,000.

Bufford stated in Thursday meeting the agency should have taken their feedback into consideration.

Yet, if there is a “desire” west of Irwin Avenue, there can be a discussion, Hope explained.

While talking to Hope, David Gellman, chair of the budget committee, said, “I think you said all these docking stations would be within three to five minutes. I thought you meant three to five minutes from people’s homes, except for the reservoir, they’re all within three to four blocks of a subway station.”

If no further action is taken, riders must make a round trip on the Citi Bike. If the Citi Bike is retrieved near Jerome Reservoir, they will return it to an available station. Going to North Riverdale could be wasteful and expensive as the timer is running similar to a yellow cab meter.

For residents like Elvis Machuca, the closest station near his workplace at the Veteran Center is only a 10-minute walk from the nearest proposed station. The southernmost point of their proposal is Eames Place between University Avenue and Webb Avenue, which is a roadbed.

“It’s good for it to be near a subway station if you can take it somewhere other than a ride around Van Cortlandt Park,” Gellman said. “You really need to go much further away from Broadway and Sedgwick Avenue so people can go somewhere with it.”

But Buford was told eventually, she could advocate expanding to those areas.

“With the committee member’s permission, I would like to ask Miss Sylvia Alexander — Education and libraries & cultural affairs chair — to appeal to NYC DOT,” Buford said. “Is that ok with the committee.”

“Between this coming in and some restaurants that still have outdoor cafes, I’d like to see more of them be off the roadbed,” said Chris Calhoun, board member and Marble Hill resident.

“I think it’s going to hurt merchants, and it’s impossible to find parking in residential areas when people get home at night.

Parking is scarce in the coverage area of CB8, and several roadbed stations might remove parking spaces.

The average station size will hold 21 docks or about 60 feet long. The agency did not give an exact number of how many parking spaces may be removed.

The agency aims to add roadbeds to the no-standing zone to avoid parking removal.

The transportation department promotes safety with helmets and light and bell giveaways for safe cycling. But they also encourage safety awareness classes.