Friday, February 28, 2014

Friday and we just want to pinch ourselves



  • This just in: CitiBike tweets that the Church & Leonard station in Tribeca is back in service. We're sorry we complained yesterday.

  • We continue to see remarkable improvement both in the sheer number of empty Manhattan stations and in the length of time that those stations are bikeless. Brooklyn, not so much. Concurrent empties have not risen above 25 for three days running. And we were getting used to regarding 25 empties as a pretty good number.


  • Fort Greene’s Cumberland & Lafayette station had the very occasional bike but we’re scoring it 25 bikeless hours.


  • Available bikes have stabilized in the low 4000s.


Bikes available at 4:30  pm today: 4330
Bikes available at 4:30  pm yesterday:  4380
Bikes available at this time a week ago: 3277




NotSpots at 4:30 pm  today: 14
NotSpots at 4:30 pm  yesterday: 17
NotSpots at this time a week ago: 37 (see what we mean?)

Thursday, February 27, 2014

Thursday: Those CitiBike crews are on a roll


  • The number of concurrent empty stations was halved again today compared to most recent weekdays. Worst we found was 25 at `12:30
  • Available bikes crossed the 4500 mark around midday and they’re up 1,100 on the week.
  • Citi Bike announced via a tweet when it took Tribeca’s Church & Leonard station down on Jan 31 that nearby construction would keep it out of service for 10 days. It's too late to mark your calendar.

Bikes available at 5:30  pm today: 4377
Bikes available at 6:01  pm yesterday:  4119
Bikes available at this time a week ago: 3259

NotSpots at 5:30 pm  today: 17
NotSpots at 6:01  pm  yesterday: 19
NotSpots at this time a week ago: 31

Wednesday, February 26, 2014

Wednesday and wow! Empty station numbers drop big time

  • Today is the first since Jan 26 that the number of empty stations did not top 30 during any of our routine checks. 

  • We liked that empty stations chart we published the other day so much that we’ve made it a permanent section of the blog. See the Empty Stations tab under the logo.


  • The operators continue to unleash more bicycles. Today we crossed the 4,000 threshold and there about 900 more bikes available now than on Sunday.



Bikes available at 6:01 pm today: 4119
Bikes available at 5:07 pm yesterday: 3853
Bikes available at this time a week ago: 3311




NotSpots at 6:01 pm today: 19
NotSpots at :07 pm  yesterday: 30
NotSpots at this time a week ago: 36

Tuesday, February 25, 2014

Tuesday pm: Why isn't bikeless in the dictionary?

  • Available bike count continues the upward climb that started Sunday.

  • Damned if a bike didn’t show up just before we did a last check on Fort Greene’s Carlton  & Park. Until 8:30  tonight  it had gone bikeless since 3:30 pm Monday.


  • We got a mention at NYToday this morning. That feels pretty good, kinda like we feel riding down Allen St -- river below, trains above. Thanks, Andy.


Bikes available at 5:07 pm today: 3853

Bikes available at 5:30 pm yesterday: 3611

Bikes available at 4:02 pm a week ago: 3318



NotSpots at 5:30 pm  today: 30

NotSpots at 5:30 pm  yesterday: 37

NotSpots at 4:02 pm a week ago: 36


And thank you, blogger, for taking over decisions like spacing, typeface etc.

A closer look at the number of empty stations



So thrilled and emboldened were we by the mention in NYToday that we decided to take a deeper look at empty stations since the beginning of the year.  We think the chart provides some evidence that our worst fear (of the moment) may be grounded. Yes, creeping Notspotism.

Questions we frequently ask

The fewest empty stations we've recorded? 5 on January 11
Has there ever been a moment when every station had a bike? Not this year.
The last time the empty station count was in single digits? Jan 20.

Monday, February 24, 2014

A record 60 empty stations at 11:30 am today

  • This is what we don’t want to see: creeping NotSpotism. We confronted the year’s high for empty stations -- 60 --  at 11:30 am on a cold (35F) and blustery Monday. Previous high we recorded this year was 57 empties around 11 pm last Tuesday.


  • The bike infusion we reported on Twitter last night continued into today. Good thing, too, considering the NotSpot record.  We found 3895 bikes available at 3:30 pm today. That’s the most since Monday Feb 3. We hit a low of 3160 last Wednesday.

  • Good morning, Front & Gold.  The Vinegar Hill, Brooklyn, station emptied out on Tuesday Feb 4, slept peacefully through the storms and reemerged today, serving bikes like nothing ever happened. And it didn’t.



Bikes available at 5:30 pm today: 3611

Bikes available at 5:30 pm Friday: 3277

Bikes available at 5:30 pm a week ago: 3278




NotSpots at 5:30 pm  today: 37

NotSpots at 5:30 pm  Friday: 37

NotSpots at 5:30 pm a week ago: 36



Out of service: The usual suspects

Sunday, February 23, 2014

The weekly NotSpot report: Did y'all have much snow this winter?

The first week we conducted our surveys coincided with the first big snow. That week it took an average of 9.2 hours for an empty station to start serving up bikes again. Of course it was the first snowstorm that the Citi Bike crews ever faced.


This past week, under much worse conditions, stations were back at it in an average 7.6 hours. Impressive.



The  week’s Top 10 NotSpots: Manhattan



WEEK 7 RANK
NEIGHBORHOOD
STATION
NOTSPOT HOURS THIS YEAR
NOTSPOT HOURS THIS WEEK
1
Hells Kitchen
W 52 St & 9 Ave
256
120
2
Midtown North
W 49 St & 5 Ave
244
34
3
Midtown North
W 37 St & 5 Ave
216
22
4
Hells Kitchen
W 54 St & 9 Ave
214
4
5
Tudor City
E 43 St & 2 Ave
178
27
6
Midtown North
E 53 St & Madison Ave
153
9
7
Midtown North
W 44 St & 5 Ave
149
14
8
Midtown East
E 51 St & Lexington Ave
149
32
9
Lower East Side
Clinton St & Grand St
148
NEW
10
Greenwich Village
Washington Square E
143
NEW


  • You just cannot get more NotSpotty than this year’s new leader, W 52 St & 9 Ave. It was down from one minute past midnight Monday morning to midnight Friday. It is, happily for all, serving up bikes as of this writing on Sunday evening.


  • The pattern that keeps repeating itself is Midtown, Midtown, Midtown. And if not Midtown, east and west of it aren’t much better.


The  week’s Top 10 NotSpots: Brooklyn



WEEK 7 RANK
NEIGHBORHOOD
STATION
NOTSPOT HOURS THIS YEAR
NOTSPOT HOURS THIS WEEK
1
Downtown
Clinton St & Tillary St
327
55
2
Downtown
Cadman Plaza E & Tillary St
266
84
3
Williamsburg
S 3 St & Bedford Ave
215
0
4
Brooklyn Heights
Columbia Heights & Cranberry St
181
84
5
Clinton Hill
DeKalb Ave & Vanderbilt Ave
178
11
6
Fort Greene
DeKalb Ave & S Portland Ave
173
28
7
Bedford-Stuyvesant
Hancock St & Bedford Ave
168
72
8
Bedford-Stuyvesant
Lexington Ave & Classon Ave
138
34
9
Clinton Hill
Washington Ave & Greene Ave
134
0
10
Downtown
Gallatin Pl & Livingston St
115
NEW


Somebody, somewhere  should be embarrassed by what doesn’t happen week after week at Brooklyn’s two Tillary St. stations.


The Gallatin Pl appearance surprised us. We had not recorded a NotSpot event there until this past week. Maybe storm stuff.


NotSpots by neighborhood: Manhattan




WEEK 7
NEIGHBORHOOD
TOTAL STATIONS
TOTAL DOCKS
NOTSPOT HOURS
MINUTES PER DOCK
1
Tudor City
8
108
69.5
39
2
Times Square
8
422
165.5
24
3
Gramercy Park
5
157
52
20
4
Hells Kitchen
14
464
150
19
5
Lower East Side
18
518
158.5
18
6
Chinatown
5
180
47.5
16
7
Flatiron
5
194
46
14
8
Civic Center
3
121
28
14
9
Greenwich Village
15
517
110
13
10
Midtown North
15
661
135.5
12



  • Tudor City, a constant among the Top 10, makes its third appearance this year as leader of the pack.
  • The string of Broadway stations through Times Square were hard hit either by the storm or by more customers than bikes.


NotSpots by neighborhood: Brooklyn




WEEK 7
NEIGHBORHOOD
TOTAL STATIONS
TOTAL DOCKS
NOTSPOT HOURS
MINUTES PER DOCK
1
Bedford-Stuyvesant
9
205
208
61
2
Downtown
9
290
278
58
3
Brooklyn Heights
8
255
110
26
4
Vinegar Hill
5
112
34
18
5
Fort Greene
20
584
107
11
6
Park Slope
1
34
6
11
7
Williamsburg
9
265
40.6
9
8
Navy Yard
4
73
4
3
9
Clinton Hill
9
249
11
3
10
Boerum Hill
3
100
0
0

  • Bed-Stuy’s minutes per dock number is the worst performance so far this year of any neighborhood, Brooklyn or Manhattan. Minutes per dock is the critical number because it’s the one number that creates a level field for all neighborhoods.