After years of growth in bike ridership, commuter cycling in New York remained flat in 2012 during the typical riding season, according to counts conducted by the city at six commuter locations last year.

From April through October, an average of 18,717 people were recorded, at the locations on weekdays from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m., down slightly from 18,846 in 2011. Over the three previous years, cycling had increased by 26 percent, 13 percent and 8 percent in the same period.

But the city’s Transportation Department pointed to the bike ridership from December of last year through February, when the figures suggest an increase of 23 percent over the previous year, as evidence that cycling in the city had continued to grow.

“It’s just a different kind of growth,” Ryan Russo, the department’s assistant commissioner for traffic management, said in a phone interview on Thursday.