"No Park" Slope Attempts to Deal with Loss of Spots from Citi Bike Docks

Erin DeGregorio

Though not on the street taking away parking spaces, this Citi Bike dock station at the Prospect Park West and 8th Street is completely empty for locals to rent out and ride bicycles. (Brooklyn, New York) (Wednesday, November 2, 2016) / Photo by Erin DeGregorio

Residents are still split on the placements of new Citi Bike dock stations in Community Board 6 - especially in Park Slope.

After 30+ meetings with CB6 individuals in the last four years, 73 stations were placed in CB6’s five neighborhoods: Park Slope, Gowanus, Carroll Gardens, Cobble Hill and Red Hook.

NYC Councilmember Brad Lander released a public statement on October 13 for locals to consider.

"There are approximately 25,000-30,000 parking spots in CB6. Citi Bike has taken away 150-200 of them – about .50 percent. I know that is small comfort if several of them are right near your house. But it is also important to remember that 57% of the households in our community don’t own cars." ("Statement")

Each station in the street takes up about three parking spots, according to Eric McClure, co-chair of the transportation committee of CB6.

McClure told NYCity News Service, "I visited all 30 Citi Bike locations in Park Slope last month prior to the CB6 hearing, and I estimated that 77 motor-vehicle parking spaces were converted to Citi Bike docking stations. That’s consistent with the 150 to 200 estimate for all of CB6’s 70+ docking stations that NYC DOT provided to Brad Lander."

So if one divides the 200 total spots removed from the five neighborhoods, each neighborhood would have an average of 40 spots removed. Park Slope, though, has nearly the doubled amount of the average removed parking spots, leaving locals to look even longer to park their vehicles.

Source: Citi Bikes. View the data set at Citi Bike NYC