Citi Bike Will Expand Into Brownsville, Officials Say

BROWNSVILLE, BROOKLYN — Citi Bike will expand into Brownsville and more than two dozen New York City neighborhoods in the next four years, officials announced Tuesday.

New York City's bike-sharing service network will cover Brownsville, parts of The Bronx, and all of Manhattan by 2023, a map of the planned expansion shows.

Citi Bike's larger service area in Brooklyn will also include Bed-Stuy, Crown Heights, Prospect Lefferts Gardens, East Flatbush, Sunset Park, South Slope, Windsor Terrace, Prospect Park South and Kensington.

The expansion, first reported by the New York Post, was announced after a new report found Citi Bike's current service area serves a largely white, affluent population while shutting out poor people of color.

The expansion, which will grow Citi Bike's service area by 35 square miles, will start next year, with outreach to local community boards beginning this fall, Mayor Bill de Blasio's office said.

Citi Bike has already begun putting docks in East Williamsburg and Bushwick and will place some in Ridgewood, Queens in the coming months, officials said.

"This expansion will help us build a more fair and equitable city for all New Yorkers," de Blasio, a Democrat, said in a statement. "Even more communities will have access to this low-cost, sustainable mode of transportation."

Lyft, Citi Bike's new owner, committed $100 million last fall to expanding the program's geographic reach and more than tripling the size of its fleet.

Citi Bike has said it will also roll out some 40,000 additional bikes in the coming years.

Patch editor Noah Manskar contributed to this report.