Benefits of a Citi Bike Commute
I’ve been commuting to and from work by Citi Bike for nearly a year and I love it. (Of course, if you own a bike, these benefits are just as relevant. My cycling experience so far has been exclusively through Citi Bike.)
Here are some of the benefits I’ve discovered:
Save money
Each trip on a Citi Bike saves me $2.75 that I would have spent on a subway ride. I switched my MTA metrocard from a monthly unlimited ($116/mo) to a “pay as you go” card. A yearly Citi Bike membership costs about $160. My switch from a monthly MTA card along with biking about 40% of my weekly commute means I save about $700/year.
Fun
It’s hard to overstate how much fun it is to bike in the city. Riding a bike isn’t really work. It’s not a nuisance like riding the subway or bus. You’re not captive like when you ride in a car. There’s something freeing and childlike in it.
Explore the city
It’s so interesting to explore the city by bike. You get to roll through neighborhoods, see what’s going on in a small part of the city at a specific time of the day. It’s not the reason I commute, but it’s one of the great benefits. It’s so much more interesting than having a windshield view of the city or riding in a subway because you actually see, interact and survey what’s going on. For example, one day I was riding home and learned that Trump was speaking on the Intrepid so they had closed down 20 blocks of the protected bike lane along the West Side Highway. This obviously pissed me off and I hate Trump, but I got to take in a bit of the spectacle with the NYPD and it was nice to be among others who were equally pissed about Trump ruining their ride. That shared experience is often what makes NYC magical.
Fast
Not enough is said about how fast biking is over other modes of transportation. By nearly all accounts, biking is faster, on average, than cars and buses in the Central Business District (below 60th street). I routinely ride along the West Side Highway faster than the cars sitting, on the highway, in stop and go traffic. I’ve been able to clock a 26 min ride home if I take 6th avenue, which is slightly dangerous, so I generally don’t. That’s faster than the subway. For many types of trips, a bike is just faster. You glide through gridlocked cars and if you can average more than 8mph, you’re faster than cars.
Outdoors
It’s just awesome to be outside! I get way more sun than I used to and even had to use some sunscreen because it gets pretty intense in the morning along the water. I happen to also have a bit of a vitamin D deficiency, so getting some sun for me is a pretty big plus.
Convenient
I have never owned a bicycle, so I’m not sure how much of a nuisance it is. But I do notice that bike racks around Manhattan are pretty rare and big locks are a necessity. With Citi Bike, it’s super easy to hop from one place to another conveniently. For example, if I’m doing a workout class during the day down at BFX (at 18th and 6th ave), it’s about a 12 minute walk or a 5 min bike ride. It takes less than 10 seconds to pop a bike out of a dock and be on your way. Citi Bike isn’t kidding about that. I use the app CityMapper, a transit app, that syncs with realtime Citi Bike availability data and tells you exactly where to get a bike (with the number of bikes available) and where to dock it (number of docks available). It couldn’t be easier.
Exercise
I won’t rehash the tons of research and findings that basically say regular biking (simply using it as a primary form of transportation) is as close to the holy grail as anyone will come. It has enormous health benefits. For me, I get to clock about 50-65 miles/week of cycling. I haven’t been frequenting Flywheel or Peloton or Swerve quite as much because I feel like I get an adequate, though not nearly as intense, level of cycling in each week.
Disconnect
I read a recent Citylab article about how the number one best thing about a bike commute is that you disconnect from everything — no checking email, no watching videos or reading Twitter or browsing Facebook. Just riding by yourself with time to think and reflect. That’s definitely a plus for me. Though I’m missing out on all the shows I used to watch on the subway (about 22 mins each way, enough time to cover a Daily Show!).
Being Part of the Solution
The easiest way to save the planet is to get a bike. There’s the major environmental benefits. Every ride I take by bicycle is a ride I’m not taking by another mode. That would normally be the C train. To be fair, I’m a huge supporter of public transit and so I don’t love that I’m taking a fare away from our subway. But certain trips I might just as easily have taken Via.
When I ride a bike, I’m another body utilizing our cycling infrastructure and asserting myself as a user of public space. I like that I take up room, with a bike, on a road in NYC. The more drivers who see cyclists, the better. The more that people in general see cyclists — regular people like me, not racing enthusiasts or daredevils — the better. It can encourage those around you to try riding and get hooked.
It’s on my mind
I had always supported cycling and protected bike lanes and all of that, but I never thought I’d ride a bike in NYC. That’s crazy and dangerous! It’s not at all. But now that I’m more regularly riding, I find myself talking way more about cycling, bike lanes, what’s safe or unsafe about it, transit options, community boards, and all of it, far more than before. I tweet about this stuff (a lot), read far more about it, talk to friends constantly about it. I’m certainly an enthusiast but I’m not alone. I’ve talked to a lot of people with similar paths as me. They began as skeptical and nervous, thinking they’d never ride. But then became comfortable and even reliant on Citi Bike to get around. I’m not alone in saying that Citi Bike is the greatest thing in recent years to happen to NYC. It has had a transformative impact on a lot of people and put pressure on the city to build safer infrastructure (which has a long way to go).
Other…
There are so many other indirect benefits to cycling.
- When you bike you’ll never find yourself in an awkward subway ride with a coworker.
- When you bike, you’ll get to see the oddities of your city. You will be “among the people” as Ben Hawes says. You’ll see unicyclists, people with dogs riding in a crate on the back of the bike, 10 foot tall bikes, cops by the Hudson River maybe pulling out a body? (I didn’t stop), and so on. You’ll pass through neighborhoods at a pace that’s way faster than walking, without a windshield, that lets you see what’s going on, stop at any point and even smell what’s cooking as you pass restaurants.
- You’ll be inconvenienced when Trump speaks at the Intrepid and it shuts down the Westside Cycleway for 20 blocks — angry emoji.
- Your hands might suffer in the winter, your brow and shirt might be sweaty in the summer, but at least you won’t be stuck in a 100 degree F train for an hour. You are never “waiting for train traffic ahead of you” on a bike.
The obvious benefit of Citi Bike is that you don’t have to own your own bike. Doing errands on Citi Bike is insanely convenient. As a friend said, when you’re cycling, “everything’s on the way.” You’ll gain a brand new perspective on how to view the city and how to respect people. Or you’ll be an a-hole New Yorker on a bike and decide that everyone’s always in your way, but that’s cool too.
What benefits did I miss? What’s your favorite part of Citi Bike? Leave a comment!
