Upper East Siders Criticize Proposed New Citi Bike Stations

UPPER EAST SIDE, NY — A number of Upper East Side residents don't think Citi Bike officials "did their homework," when scouting locations for new bike stations in the neighborhood.

Residents and members of Community Board 8 questioned and criticized city Department of Transportation officials during Wednesday night's meeting of the board's transportation committee. Meeting attendees aired grievances with the DOT for poor planning and poor communication with the community.

The committee met to discuss — among other things — nine new proposed Citi Bike stations and the planned reduction in size of seven existing stations.

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Most residents had no complaints about the Citi Bike program, but many wondered how the DOT concluded that these nine locations would receive the new stations. Many residents complained that the DOT seemed unaware that the proposed new locations would block access to certain buildings or stations were suggested for areas that would be inconvenient.

Scott Falk, co-chair of the community board transportation committee, echoed these concerns and slammed the DOT for not communicating well enough with the community.

"You have to be better at communicating with us. It's really critical and the only way to eliminate a lot of the backlash," Falk said to mild applause.

Residents found two proposed stations — at 78th Street west of 2nd Avenue and at 83rd Street west of East End Avenue — particularly problematic.

Charles Whitman, a resident of the Upper East Side for more than 40 years, said that the DOT proposal to install a Citi Bike station on 83rd Street near East End Avenue troubled him. Whitman expressed concern over the location because of already limited parking space in the area. Whitman also pointed out that the proposed station is located on the site of a major construction project, the demolition and reconstruction of the Brearley School. The project is expected to take 3 years to complete, according to Whitman.

"Plain and simple they didn't do their homework," Whitman told Patch. "If you're going to do these things then talk to people."

Multiple residents were also concerned about the proposed site on 78th Street west of Second Avenue because it would block access to a community health center.

Other than minor complaints, the other seven proposed new locations were not seen as problems.

Here's a list of the proposed new stations:

1. East 65th Street midblock between Second & Third Avenues
2. East 66th Street west of Madison Avenue
3. East 68th Street east of Madison Avenue
4. Third Avenue north of 72nd Street
5. 74th Street east of First Avenue
6. 78th Street west of Second Avenue
7. Madison Avenue between 81st & 82nd Streets
8. East 83rd Street west of East End Avenue
9. 92nd Street between Lexington & Third Avenues

The new stations are part of the DOT final plan to maintain 38 Citi Bike stations in the Upper East Side. The DOT representatives also proposed reducing the amount of bikes at seven existing stations.

Here's a list of the proposed stations that would be reduced in size:

• First Avenue and 62nd Street
• 67th Street and Park Avenue
• Third Avenue and 71st Street
• 81st Street and York Avenue
• East End Avenue and 86th Street
• 85th Street and York Avenue
• 84th Street and Park Avenue

The bikes taken from these stations would be redistributed to the nine new proposed stations, resulting in a net gain of zero total Citi Bikes on the Upper East Side, said John Frost, executive director of bike-share at DOT.

The new proposal is closer to the plan Community Board 8 wanted Citi Bike to follow last year, said Scott Falk, co-chair of the transportation committee.

"My conspiracy theory last year was that we're a difficult neighborhood that they wanted as few fights as possible so they threw fewer huger stations at us," Falk said. "Now what they're actually doing is going back and trying to serve the needs of the system and the community by having more, smaller stations. This is consistent with our request last year."

Community Board 8 will meet for its full board meeting July 20.

[Photo: Ron Cogswell via flickr]