Bicyclists Cycling In The City

NYC DOT is pleased to announce the release of Cycling in the City, an update on cycling trends in New York City. This brief examines data from the New York City Community Health Survey and national surveys, on-going bike counts, and Citi Bike to assess how frequently New Yorkers are using cycling as a mode of transportation and how that frequency is changing over time.

Approximately nine-hundred thousand New Yorkers ride a bike regularly. It is estimated that over 510,000 cycling trips are made each day in New York City—triple the amount taken 15 years ago.

As part of the Green Wave, NYC DOT installed 21.4 lanes miles of protected bicycle lanes in 2019. DOT also installed 22.8 lane miles of dedicated cycling space in Priority Bicycle Districts—neighborhoods with comparatively high numbers of cyclist fatalities and severe injuries and few dedicated cycling facilities.

With the expansion of the bicycle network on city streets, miles of new greenway paths in public parks, and the introduction of bike share, there have never been more people biking in New York City. In recent years, as a result of this new infrastructure, the city has experienced a sea change in the way that people ride bikes: new bike lanes and greenways encourage New Yorkers to use bikes to get around their own neighborhoods and for recreation; protected lanes and Citi Bike make cycling a more comfortable and convenient transportation option.

Historically, evaluation of cyclist activity in New York City has centered on counting the number of bicycles entering and exiting the Manhattan core, but this approach does not account for the wide variety of trips that increasingly occur around the city. In an effort to better understand the widening breadth of cycling, NYC DOT partnered with the NYC Department of Health and Mental Hygiene to include several questions about cycling in its annual Community Health Survey. The recent introduction of a Citywide Mobility Survey provides another important data source to better understand the transportation choices of New Yorkers.

By focusing on the cyclist and not the trip, these surveys provide a more holistic approach to quantifying cycling activity, especially when used in combination with long-term census data on bike commuting, on-going bike counts on the East River Bridges and in Midtown, and new data from Citi Bike. Taken as a whole, this information helps paint a more accurate picture of cycling in New York City than we have ever had before.

Cycling in the City—A Snapshot

Nearly nine-hundred thousand New Yorkers (900,000) ride a bicycle regularly (at least several times a month)

33% of adult New Yorkers, approximately 2 million people, ride a bike (at least once in the past year)

1,301 lane miles of bike lanes installed in New York City as of 2019

501 lane miles of protected bike lanes installed in New York City as of 2019

On a typical day, there are over 510,000 cycling trips made in New York City

Cycling in the City—Trends Over Time

Daily Cycling

116% growth in daily cycling, 2008-2018



35% growth in daily cycling, 2013-2018



6.2% average annual growth rate of daily cycling, 2013-2018

Peer Cities

Cycling to work has grown nearly twice as fast in NYC as in other major cities (35% growth in NYC compared to 16% growth in peer cities)

Commuters by Sex

Female commuter cycling increased more than four times faster than male commuter cycling, 2015-2018



24% of all Citi Bike subscriber trips (4.9 million) were made by females in 2019

East River Bridges

2.8% average annual growth rate of cycling on the East River Bridges, 2009-2019



19% growth in cycling on the Queensboro Bridge, 2013-2018—the fastest of the East River Bridges

Midtown

5.8% average annual growth rate of cycling at 50th Street, 2009-2019

Uptown

42% growth in cycling at 86th Street, 2015-2018



7% growth in cycling at 86th Street, 2017-2018

Citi Bike

17% growth in daily Citi Bike use, 2018-2019



20.6 million Citi Bike trips in 2019

Past Cycling in the City Reports