Citi Bike Kills $3 Price Cap on Halloween Night

Citi Bike riders are fuming over a sudden and unannounced change in the bikeshare system’s price structure which removed the $3 cap on rides in the outer boroughs.

Reporting for Streetsblog NYC, Dave Colon quotes one customer who, in a tweet, wrote, “This price change discourages using Citi Bike to get between outer boroughs, exactly the type of trips bike share should be encouraging to fill in transportation gaps.” According to Colon, “The cap on e-bike costs was originally introduced at the end of 2019 as a $2 cap on rides outside of Manhattan, part of a billing change included with the expansion of the number of e-bikes in the fleet.” The cap went up to $3 in March 2021.

Lyft insists the recent update was meant to fix a glitch that had been “undercharging” for some rides. “According to Lyft, the cap was always meant to facilitate e-bike rides over bridges connected to Manhattan that might otherwise be taken in cars, which is why the cap still exists for trips starting or ending in Manhattan.”

Prices for annual Citi Bike memberships also went up in 2022, but, as Colon points out, “Citi Bike also remains the only mass transit option in New York City that doesn’t get any type of public subsidy, which has forced Lyft to bear the costs of expanding the number of bikes, number of docks around the city and the physical footprint around the city by itself.”