Skip to main content

New York sees a boom in cycling

According to New York City Department of Transportation’s (NYC DOT) 2016 Cycling in the City brief, New York City has seen a recent dramatic increase in cycling, with the claim that the city has seen a 320 per cent increase in daily cycling between 1990 and 2014 and a 68 per cent growth in daily cycling between 2010 and 2014. The brief uses data collected by the Department of Health and Mental Hygiene (DOHMH) as part of its annual Community Health Survey, where 25 per cent of adult New Yorkers (almost 1.
May 10, 2016 Read time: 2 mins
According to 5590 New York City Department of Transportation’s (NYC DOT) 2016 Cycling in the City brief, New York City has seen a recent dramatic increase in cycling, with the claim that the city has seen a 320 per cent increase in daily cycling between 1990 and 2014 and a 68 per cent growth in daily cycling between 2010 and 2014.

The brief uses data collected by the Department of Health and Mental Hygiene (DOHMH) as part of its annual Community Health Survey, where 25 per cent of adult New Yorkers (almost 1.6 million) reported riding a bike at least once in the last year, and 12 per cent (778,000) rode at least several times a month, a number that has expanded by 49 per cent since 2009.

It claims that this growth has also contributed to safer cycling: data show that the risk to New York City cyclists of a serious injury or fatality has been reduced 72 per cent over the last fifteen years.

City officials claim this is mainly due to the efforts made to expand the city’s bicycle infrastructure since the mid-1990s, when NYC DOT established a bicycle program to oversee development of the city’s cycle network.

Since then, NYC DOT has built a cycle network that serves an ever-growing number of New Yorkers and, since 2010 has expanded and enhanced the on-street bike network by nearly 300 miles, including more than 40 protected lane miles, with a record 12 miles installed in 2015. The report indicated that NYC DOT is on track to install even more protected lanes in 2016, with over 15 new miles planned.

Brooklyn has seen the greatest percentage growth in cycling; between 2010 and 2014, cycle commutes increased by 75 per cent, from 10,494 to 18,317. In the same period, cycle commuters in Manhattan increased by 68 per cent, from 8,997 to 15,088, alongside Queens which also saw a 68 per cent increase from 3,764 to 6,342.

Meanwhile, the city’s bike share program, Citi Bike, saw a 23 per cent growth in daily use between 2014 and 2015, from 22,172 in 2010 to 27,287 in 2014. According to CEO and President of Motivate, which operates Citi Bike, the company plans to expand into new neighbourhoods, growing to 12,000 bikes by the end of 2017.

For more information on companies in this article

Related Content

  • California to set up statewide BEV charging network
    March 27, 2012
    The US state of California has announced a statewide US$120 million battery electric vehicle (BEV) charging station network to supply 10,000 retrofitted charging systems at areas such as individual offices and homes, along with at least 200 public charging stations. Under the scheme, announced by Governor Jerry Brown, all major California cities are to have the charging infrastructure to be BEV-ready by 2015 with the state having a charging infrastructure that can support one million zero-emission vehicles
  • Telematics will ‘uber-ise’ the auto insurance industry, says new UBI study
    December 21, 2015
    Ptolemus Consulting Group has released the 2016 edition of its usage-based insurance global study by offering a free, 125-page abstract. Available to download today, the document reveals the key findings of the 1,000-page telematics insurance market analysis. With 230 active programmes and 12 million customers, usage-based insurance (UBI) is now a truly global phenomenon that reaches twice as many countries as two years ago. Ptolemus claims that by 2020, nearly 100 million vehicles globally will be in
  • Smart highways market ‘worth US$27,992 million by 2019’
    October 9, 2014
    A new research report by MarketsandMarkets, "Smart Highway Market by Technology (Intelligent Transportation Management, Intelligent Traffic Management, Communication, Monitoring), and by Display (Variable Message Signs, Digital Signage) - Global Forecast to 2019", estimates that the global Smart Highways Market is US$12,564.4 million in 2014 and is expected to grow to US$27,992 million in 2019. This represents an estimated compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 17.4 per cent from 2014 to 2019. In the cur
  • GPS-enabled GSM/WCDMA handsets grew 97 per cent in 2010
    May 16, 2012
    According to a report by Berg Insight, global shipments of GPS-enabled GSM/WCDMA handsets increased almost 97 per cent in 2010 to 295 million units. Growing at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 28.8 per cent, shipments are forecast to reach 940 million units in 2015. The attach rates for wireless connectivity technologies in handsets including GPS, Bluetooth and WLAN are increasing steadily as the adoption of smartphones accelerates. These connectivity technologies are already a standard feature on hi