When Citi Bikes Are Faster Than Taxis in New York City

Not much love for biking here; You&#x27;d almost think that most of the people on Hacker News are from Californian suburbs...<p>Seriously though, biking in cities is great. It&#x27;s one of those critical mass problems where the more people that do it the better the infrastructure gets, the more aware drivers become and there is a herd mentality where bikers tend to flow together making them more predictable and therefore safer to be around.<p>I bike and drive in Toronto [i probably drive more than bike, depends on the weather and somewhat the mood i&#x27;m in], both have big up and downsides, just be considerate to everyone which ever you&#x27;re taking part in!<p>Edit: I forgot to say, those Citi bikes in NYC [Bikeshare in Toronto, Santander in London] have a special cohort of people riding them. The bikes are so slow [heavy!!!], and the riders are casual riders. I love that it gets people moving, and I use them from time to time, but damn the whole experience of riding next to one is scary even as another biker.

As a pedestrian crossing the straw in NYC, you will typically wait for cars to stop, then walk about 2&#x2F;3 of the way into the street, then peer into the bike lane to make sure no bikes are coming, then complete your crossing. Most of the bikers, from my experience, do not follow rules such as stopping at a Stop sign or for pedestrians or at their own bike designated stop lights.<p>It may be nice to bike in the cities parks or on its outskirts, but it&#x27;s a dangerous proposition in the city itself. NYC is an urban jungle with a web of cars pedestrians, delivery trucks, garbage trucks and construction zones all over. As a biker, if you are not going to follow the rules, you are going to find yourself in trouble at some point.

Being from the Netherlands I am not at all surprised by this. It is very well known here that bikes get you places quicker than cars do. Especially within cities you can go to the city center without having to worry about finding a parking spot and paying a huge amount of money when you do.<p>I have lived in New York and have driven a car there and based on that experience I wouldn&#x27;t really find driving a bike there problematic. I have also lived in Brussels (Belgium) and used citi bikes there and was generally happy about the experience, even though the Belgian roads are a lot more dangerous due to the fact that Belgians don&#x27;t have the slightest clue about anything that has to do with driving or traffic: they can&#x27;t drive cars, they can&#x27;t plan roads properly, they can&#x27;t maintain them, etc. New York is grid based so traffic situations are easier to oversee.

I am a zealous citibike convert here in NYC and I&#x27;ll take one over a taxi any day but I think there&#x27;s a systematic error in these numbers.<p>I assume the taxi times are pickup to drop-off (ie encompasses the entire trip) while bike are station to station so there is walking time that&#x27;s not accounted for on either end of the bike trip. There are times where the nearest station doesn&#x27;t have bikes or free docks so the walk may be non trivia and add up to more than the 5 minutes median difference for cross town.<p>On the other hand sometimes it takes a while to catch a cab and that&#x27;s not included in the data either so perhaps it averages out.<p>The author is right, bikes are great for reducing variability (on the bike you can get around most obstruction, even if it means walking the bike on a sidewalk for a quarter of a block while the taxi gets stuck)<p>The one advice I disagree with is taking the bike when the President is in town. Trump was here last week for the UN and with all the street closures, detours and crazed drivers, biking was much more dangerous than usual.

I&#x27;m from Sweden and have been biking in NYC as a tourist. I must say, it is one of the most scariest places I have biked in my life.<p>Huge cars, almost no biking lanes, a lot of people and other traffic. I admit I was also a bit drunk but still, in Stockholm we have biking lanes almost everywhere and you feel a lot safer. Also there is a lot more people that use the bike when you give them a lane to bike on.<p>Please, create more biking lanes. It&#x27;s better for the cars, it is better for pedestrians, it&#x27;s better for the environment and public health.

I would love to bike, but the major issue is that every single person I know who&#x27;s biked for more than 1 year has gotten into some type of accident (around 10 people), whether car, car door, or poorly maintained road. These are all 30s and work-at-the-office types so maybe they&#x27;re not the most coordinated, but they are also not doing stupid shit.

I cannot help but witness the effects of traffic calming:<p>&gt; a taxi trip in 2017 took 17% longer than the same trip in 2009.<p>&gt; The same regression applied to Citi Bikes shows no such slowdown over time, in fact Citi Bikes got slightly faster.<p>Obviously when you dedicate more street space from cars towards bikes, bikes get faster and cars get slower. The article goes to mention this, but also downplays it.<p>What the article seems to ignore on a major scale is the effect of traffic calming, or traffic impeding. By civilizing traffic to the appropriate rules and procedures via hardscapes, you make vehicle travel more unbearable and a test of patience. If the intentions behind doing this weren&#x27;t derived from anti-car sentiments, I could respect this move. But Janet Sadik-Khan is a bicycling enthusiast and after her appointment, car travel became really bad.

I have been comparing biking and driving to work in Derby (UK) for my 7 mile commute. Biking can be quicker for me depending on traffic. I have just ordered an ebike that should shift the odds more in favour of this bike.<p>I always feel better having commuted on bike though

Or... walk? For a lot of trips in central Manhattan, walking ten or twenty uptown blocks or cross-town for a few blocks is often the easiest way to get from point A to B. Personally, I don&#x27;t really bike but I&#x27;m not sure the last time I felt I needed to take a cab in NYC.

As a daily commuter in NYC, often on Citibike, one of the most concerning discoveries has been the ability (if you are willing to pedal hard) to consistently beat out ambulances over stretches of 15 blocks -- specifically without running red lights on the bike whereas the ambulance is going through them -- due to the slow speed in which traffic clears a path for them. I really wish the streets were not so congested with vehicular traffic to prevent emergency vehicles from getting to their destinations.

Do people use bikes to get anywhere faster? I would use one to save on emissions and&#x2F;or get some much needed exercis<p>edit: so many replies!<p>I guess I stand corrected, although the more I think about it, the less I&#x27;m surprised. I live in Japan, obviously known for its public transport. Interesting to note though once I travel abroad, thanks for the replies everyone :-)

IMHO, for the most ideal city experience, transit options should be prioritized in this order: 1) pedestrians, 2) buses, 3) bikes, 4) cars. Biking being faster than motoring is excellent news towards this ideal.

Are electric scooters and other small electric vehicles such as balancing boards or the Qingbu pocket scooter (a ripoff of the Walkcar?) legal in the US? They seem to be getting cheap now (saw the Xiaomi M365 for less than $330). Unfortunately in Germany you may not yet use them on public roads and sidewalks.<p>I can see them having an advantage over bikes (and cars) because you can just fold them up and carry them with you into a cab, the subway, your office or your home.

Rally nice analysis. It is a pity that open access to data like this is still exception, not a rule. I wish to have such data for my city.

I&#x27;m in Shanghai at the moment and it&#x27;s definitely the same here, especially during peak hours. Lots of bikes for rent here too, you can see them on many sidewalks, not unusual to see a few hundred in a row. Students and office workers alike are using them. Ofo and Mobike are the big players here, they are also expanding to other continents now :)

NYC is not a bike friendly city at all (some parts of certain boroughs might be). Biking in NYC is also a quick ticket to ER room. I have already eye witnessed multiple altercations and accidents of bicyclists in this city. Scary.

From the article:<p>&gt; The same regression applied to Citi Bikes shows no such slowdown over time, in fact Citi Bikes got slightly faster.<p>I suspect this is mainly due to better bikes. I&#x27;ve been a yearly subscriber to Citibike since the very beginning - and I can attest that the quality of the system and the bikes has improved tremendously since inception. Quality of the bikes is judged in part by their durability and sturdiness of individual items - but also the gearing. The newest bikes have the NuVinci continuous variable gear system - which is amazing to use but also allows you to get into a lot higher gear than the original bikes.

What is the life expectancy of getting in a taxi and getting to your destination vs getting on a bike? Probability of surviving if you get hit by a car: being in both? The other thing this article failed to mention is that NYC implemented slower speeds for cars. Overall this is true, but safety should be a factor and bikers nor drivers obey laws. Make the fines super expensive and use that money to educate people about the rules of the road. Drives me bonkers that they collect so much money in tickets from drivers but do not educate the people about it because they want the revenue haha. So stupid.

When you&#x27;re trying to get to the morgue? I&#x27;m sympathetic to cyclists - I am one myself - but the average CitiBike rider rides like an 8 year old who just got their first bike.

In virtually every crosstown route during working hours in lower Manhattan. It&#x27;s not even close, Citi Bikes are 1.5x - 2.5x faster than a cab.

If you are commuting on Caltrain in SF, it is way easier to take the citibikes. Only a relatively short distance in SOMA and way faster. When I went south to the tech campuses, I brought my own bike on the train.<p>There are a few bikers that cause problems. I was driving in Palo Alto yesterday and a cyclist insisted on using the car lane instead of a perfectly good bike lane.

Been biking in both Los Angeles &amp; New York as my commute. In LA driving took 1-2h while biking took 1h. In my experience it&#x27;s been faster for my commute, however there&#x27;s still many days where there are no bikes where I live (UWS).<p>I can highly recommend trying out the Citi bike if you live in New York, it&#x27;s so cheap and many of the companies pays for it.

As a NYer it&#x27;s pretty clear that going cross town on a bike or skate board will be faster than a car, especially during rush hour. Moving through tight areas like Soho and Greenwich village, I would say that a skateboard is probably the fastest. I still can&#x27;t tell if a skate board is safer than a bike. Absolutely more fun though

It might work in NY, worked well for me in central London, but I&#x27;d like to see how the people will prefer that in cities that are built on the hills, like San Francisco or Seattle.

what citi bikes need is a reward system to get riders to transfer bikes from plenty to empty areas.<p>[edit] i meant to use Citi bike as a generic term.

What they didn&#x27;t take into account is that riding a bike in a crowded city is a task for suicidal people only!

I live in the East Village and am convinced that cyclists in New York City have no regard for human life. The NYPD seems to be cracking down on their lawless behavior, but I think a push away from cycling and towards ride-sharing (a la Via) is the solution for our transit issue.<p>With our broken subway system and high volume of cabs, ubers, etc; it is clear that New York is a driving city - but not a parking city.

I ride a bike in NYC. If you accept being sweaty in the summer and risk getting hit in certain areas, then you&#x27;ll have a blast riding. Otherwise it&#x27;s a burden. In my opinion, biking is one of the fastest forms of transportation when traveling &lt;40 blocks. Also, Citi Bikes are lunky. I hate riding them.