Community Corner
Citi Bike Comes To Washington Heights Early For Health Workers
A station opened near Columbia University Medical Center on Tuesday, months before Citi Bike was slated to come to the neighborhood.
WASHINGTON HEIGHTS, NY — Citi Bike's expansion into Washington Heights has arrived months early thanks to a new station aimed at helping healthcare workers get around during the coronavirus pandemic.
The bike-sharing service unveiled a new station next to NewYork-Presbyterian Columbia University Medical Center on Tuesday as an extra transportation option for the hospital's staff to get to work.
"It is critically important that those who must travel across the city right now can do so safely with social distance, and I'm grateful that Lyft and NYC DOT are adding this critical option for those who work at one of our city's important healthcare centers," said Council Member Mark Levine, chair of the Council Committee on Health.
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The dock, the first north of 130th Street, comes months before Citi Bike planned to roll out its expansion into Washington Heights, Harlem and the Bronx. Stations were slated to open in 14 new neighborhoods by 2023.
It also comes after calls from Council Member Ydanis Rodriguez to speed up the expansion amid the coronavirus pandemic. Rodriguez said Tuesday that he hopes the Washington Heights station is a sign of more to come.
"I urge the City and Lyft to also expand these bike stations to other hospitals and medical centers in Northern Manhattan and the South Bronx. Specifically, around The Allen Hospital, Dyckman and Broadway, Bronx Lebanon Hospital, and the Lincoln Medical Center," Rodriguez said.
The new station, at West 169th Street and Fort Washington Avenue, will offer free memberships to first-responder, healthcare, and transit workers as part of the bike-sharing company's Critical Workforce Membership Program, which it announced in March.
Employers of these essential workers should email HeroBikes@Lyft.com to obtain enrollment information to distribute to staff, Citi Bike said.
Citi Bike said additional stations will be coming to Washington Heights later this year.
The full expansion will bring stations to Harlem, Hamilton Heights, Sugar Hill, Washington Heights and Inwood in Manhattan and Mott Haven, Melrose, Port Morris, Highbridge, Claremont, Morrisania, Longwood, Concourse and Mt. Eden in The Bronx.
Details of the expansion, announced last summer, came on the heels of a report showing that Citi Bike's current service area serves a largely white, affluent population while shutting out poor people of color.
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