Citi Bike Rebalancing Explorer
Where stations run out of bikes or fill up, who that affects, and where a truck does the most good.
An empty or full station is a barrier to choosing a bike.
The City's Citi Bike contract, as summarized by the NYC Comptroller, requires stations not to sit completely full or empty, with a penalty only when adjacent stations are also out. This tool turns that rule into something a planner can see.
Historical Flow: every station, every hour
2,592 stations colored by average net bikes/day at 8:00 AM on a weekday. Red stations are heading toward empty, blue toward full.
Click any station for its 24-hour flow
Here, W 36 St & 9 Ave: average net bikes per hour on a weekday. More Info adds the station's nearest subway stop and its NYCHA and school proximity.
Live Docks: the contract's rule, as it stands right now
From the public GBFS feed, refreshed every 60 s. A double-outage is an empty or full station with another within 500 m, shown as an amber ring. The 500 m is this project's own definition, and the tile says it's an instant reading, not the contract's 60-minute measurement.
Scenario Planner: what if it rains?
A steady-rain day (60°F, 0.4 in) cuts the 8 AM imbalance from 6,070 to 3,788 bikes. Marked PROJECTED: it is estimated from historical elasticity, not a weather-specific forecast model.
Larger stations are associated with lower unusable rates, after accounting for demand
Stations with 40+ docks sit about 2.1 points lower than those under 20 (2,317 stations). A pattern in observational data, not proof that adding docks causes the improvement.
- Irregular sampling: 191 snapshots over 61 days, median gap about 87 minutes.
- No borough controls: the capacity finding adjusts for demand only.
- Weather is a projection from historical elasticity, not a forecast model.
Independent analytical project. Not an official product of NYC DOT, the NYC Comptroller, or Lyft/Citi Bike. Built by Reza Taeb.