If you live in the New York chances are you probably use the subway or bus fairly often, unless you can afford to take a cab everywhere or you just don’t leave your house. Sometimes it can seem like half the time you spend traveling on the subway or bus system is spent waiting, and then when you finally get on it’s crowded and/or smells and the longer your commute is the more annoyed you get that you’re spending $112/month for this crap! The MTA surely knows how to provide excellent transportation service… especially on weekends, right?
The answer to this problem has been to keep your monthly coins and just get a bike and avoid the MTA altogether, but now there’s an alternative to that alternative— Citibike. Citibike is New York’s bike share program similar to that of DC, Boston, Paris, Tel Aviv, Milan, and the list goes on. For $95 +Tax you can use Citibike for a year, which is a damn good deal compared to the $1,344 per year people will be spending riding the subway/bus!! The deal is you sign up and pay online and you will get a key mailed to you approximately 2-3 weeks before the official launch of Citibike in May. When you receive the key you just log in at citibikenyc.com to activate and you’re ready to ride! Of course there are other options if you’re not down to commit to a yearly membership. There’s a 24 hour access pass priced at $9.95+Tax or a 7 day pass which costs $24.05+Tax. Financially, it seems like a better choice to get the yearly pass over the other options which seem to be geared to tourists and non-NYC dwellers.
With the 24 hour and 7 day passes riders get 30 minutes of time to ride to your destination, although if you ride longer you don’t get charged extra until you’re 30 minutes late returning a Citibike. Yearly membership holders get 45 minutes of riding and don’t get charged extra until you’re 45 minutes late returning a Citibike. You can use Citibike 24 hours a day all year long. Late fees are also different between the passes, but all that is sufficiently explained at citibikenyc.com.
Installment of Citibike stations around the Clinton Hill section of Brooklyn began on April 6th and will continue to be installed between the Downtown Brooklyn area and pretty much all of Manhattan below 59th Street until the official launch in May. Stations all over the city will be installed in phases afterwards. Check out the screen shot from nyc.gov/bikeshare below to see where the Citibike stations will be.
