NYC's Dockless Bike Program Gets 3 More Months

NEW YORK — New York City has prolonged its dockless bike-sharing program for three more months as two participating companies push to expand their services.

Three companies — JUMP, Lime and Citi Bike — currently offer freestanding, rentable bikes in The Bronx, Staten Island and the Rockaways under a pilot program launched last July. The Department of Transportation has extended Lime and JUMP's operations for another 90 days "for the purpose of further evaluation," a department spokesperson said Thursday. That follows a similar three-month extension in November.

Both companies say they're interested in expanding to help more New Yorkers access alternative transportation options — a move the DOT is apparently weighing.

"We have received expansion proposals from JUMP and Lime and are considering next steps," the DOT spokesperson said in an email.

Citi Bike says it plans to also extend its dockless program and is hashing out specifics with the DOT. The service has offered dockless bikes in The Bronx as well as thousands of others at fixed stations in Manhattan, Brooklyn, Queens and New Jersey.

Lime official Phil Jones said the firm is "thrilled" about the extension, which will take the company's presence in the city through May.

"We are very interested in extending and expanding Lime's dock-free bike program in New York City, and will continue to work with the NYC DOT on what an expansion plan would look like so that Lime can provide affordable, reliable micro-mobility options to more New Yorkers," Jones, Lime's senior director for East Coast government relations and strategic partnership, said in a statement.

Dockless bike-sharing lets New Yorkers rent bicycles without having to park them in curbside stations like those Citi Bike uses. JUMP and Lime argue that they could offer a low-cost mode of transportation to parts of the city currently not served by Citi Bike.

A report Lime published last week says that Citi Bike stations have not yet reached largely black and Latino areas such as northern Manhattan, The Bronx and Canarsie, East New York and East Flatbush in Brooklyn.

JUMP, which has a total of 400 pedal-assist electric bikes in two boroughs, wants to bring its service to all of The Bronx and Staten Island and then to parts of Queens and Brooklyn that lack Citi Bike docks, a JUMP spokesperson said.

The company — which is owned by the ride-hailing giant Uber — first submitted its expansion proposal in September and sent it again in December, the spokesperson said.

Uber spokesman Harry Hartfield said JUMP will "continue to push to ensure everyday New Yorkers can access e-bikes without an additional surcharge." That's an apparent reference to the $2 fee Citi Bike recently imposed to ride one of its electric bikes.

"We've asked the Department of Transportation to allow JUMP bikes to serve New Yorkers forgotten by Citi Bike and hope they share our interest in making e-bikes available, and affordable, for everyone - no matter their zip-code," Hartfield said in a statement.

Citi Bike has announced plans to more than triple the size of its fleet to almost 40,000 bikes and grow its service area by 35 square miles. The major expansion is thanks to a $100 million investment from Lyft — one of Uber's competitors — which acquired Citi Bike's parent company, Motivate, last year.

Correction: A previous version of this story misstated information about the dockless program’s previous extension. The extension, not expansion, was in November, not September.