Citi Bike’s Electric Bikes Are Fast. But Are They Dangerous?

Weather: Brisk and windy start to the day. In the afternoon, it gets cloudy and temperatures climb into the 60s. In the evening, a chance of light rain.

Alternate-side parking: In effect through Wednesday, then suspended through Saturday for Holy Thursday, Good Friday and Passover.

Citi Bike, New York City’s bike-sharing program, has boomed in popularity since it debuted in 2013, nearly doubling the number of bikes in its fleet and tripling the average number of daily rides. The program seemed like a smart alternative to traveling on stalled trains and congested vehicular streets.

Then two months ago, a Citi Bike rider in Queens hit the brakes on his pedal-assist bike — the kind with an electric motor — and flipped over the handlebars. The same thing happened to another rider a month later in Brooklyn.

This weekend, Citi Bike announced it would remove the pedal-assist bikes from its New York City fleet and investigate what went wrong. Lyft, which owns Citi Bike, took similar precautions with its bike-sharing services in Washington and San Francisco.

Here’s what you need to know:

Which bikes have the problem?

The pedal-assist bikes. Citi Bike’s New York program has about 1,000 of these bikes, on which riders activate an electric motor as they pedal. The bikes can go up to about 20 miles per hour, and they have been allowed on city streets for about a year.

But dozens of people have reported flipping over the handlebars after applying the brakes.

Asked whether Citi Bike or Lyft was compensating riders who said they were injured, a Citi Bike spokeswoman said she could not comment on specific incidents.

The pedal-assist bikes were replaced with traditional bikes, and Citi Bike did not say when they might return to New York’s streets.

People flipped over the handlebars? How?

Riders who quickly hit the brakes reported stopping short, then flipping over the handlebars. My colleague Tyler Pager collected some of their recent stories.

Dominik Glodzik said he went over the handlebars when he tried to brake before a stop sign in Astoria, Queens. Jordan Wyckoff said he was thrown from a bike in Brooklyn when he tried to stop after a minivan swerved into the bike lane.

More riders came forward after Mr. Pager’s article was published.

How many people use Citi Bikes?

A lot.

In 2013, Citi Bike had fewer than 7,000 bikes. Today it has 12,000 and plans to expand to nearly 40,000 bicycles around 2023. Most are not of the pedal-assist variety.

The number of Citi Bike rides has also grown. In March 2014, there was an average of 14,562 rides per day. Last month, the average was 43,604 rides.

Where are Citi Bikes?

The bikes are docked at stations in Manhattan and parts of Queens and Brooklyn. There are also some “dockless” bikes in the Fordham neighborhood of the Bronx.

Citi Bike says its five-year expansion plan will add 35 square miles to its coverage area.

Are there other bike-sharing options in the city?

There are dockless bike-sharing programs in the Rockaways in Queens, on the North Shore of Staten Island and in the Bronx, also in the Fordham area.

The companies operating those bikes include Lime, Jump and Pace. Many of those bicycles are pedal-assist.

Familiar circumstances in a fatal police shooting

The Times’s Ali Watkins and Ashley Southall report:

A police officer shot and killed a knife-wielding man late Sunday at a halfway home in the Bronx, the police said yesterday. The episode was the latest in a string of fatal encounters between the police and a person who was acting erratically and refused an order to drop a weapon.

The man, Kawaski Trawick, 32, a fitness instructor from Georgia, was threatening neighbors in the Morris Heights neighborhood with a large stick, the police said. Two officers arrived to find him inside his apartment, holding a broomstick and a kitchen knife.

After not responding to demands to drop the weapons, Mr. Trawick was shocked with a Taser stun gun, the police said. He sprang back up and moved toward the officers with the knife. An officer fired four shots, striking Mr. Trawick in the chest.

He was pronounced dead at a hospital, the authorities said.

Both officers had undergone crisis intervention training, according to the Police Department.

Chief Terence A. Monahan, the department’s highest-ranking uniformed officer, said the shooting appeared to be justified.

“This guy’s charging at them with a knife in one hand, a stick in the other, screaming at them in a confined space,” Chief Monahan said. “Officers have to make a decision in a matter of seconds, and that’s what happened here. It escalated very quickly.”

From The Times

What we’re reading

The city will vaccinate raccoons for rabies in several northern Manhattan parks. [Gothamist]

This fund was supposed to help injured taxi drivers. Some of it went to well-connected lobbyists. [Crain’s New York]

New inspections for lead hazards at public housing apartments have begun. [amNew York]

A two-alarm fire damaged a popular restaurant in Brighton Beach, Brooklyn. The owners and residents were blaming the city, claiming it failed to keep the area free of debris. [BKLYNER]

Stat of the day: $211,289

That was Governor Cuomo’s adjusted gross income in 2018, according to tax returns that he made available to reporters on Monday. His salary as governor is $179,000. He also made about $40,000 in dividends from his investments.

But he’ll see a pay bump this year, to $200,000, after lawmakers approved a raise for him in this year’s state budget. He’ll be making $250,000 by 2021.

In 2018, the governor paid an effective federal tax rate of 18.5 percent and a state rate of 5.8 percent.

— Vivian Wang

Coming up today

Children can make Tibetan prayer flags at the Port Richmond library in the Bronx. 3 p.m. [Free]

The Urban Bush Women company hosts a dance class for all ages and abilities at BRIC House Ballroom in Brooklyn. 6:30 p.m. [Free]

The trumpeter Bruce Harris performs at Dizzy’s Club at Lincoln Center in Manhattan. 11:15 p.m. [$10]

— Iman Stevenson

Events are subject to change, so double-check before heading out. For more events, see the going-out guides from The Times’s culture pages.

And finally: The Met’s rooftop garden is open

Enjoying the rooftop garden at the Met is a right of passage for New Yorkers. There is sunshine, there is art and there is, of course, a rooftop bigger than any tar-covered canopy you might usually find yourself on.

Each year, the work of a lucky artist is featured on the rooftop. This year, the artist is Alicja Kwade, who is based in Berlin and best known for sculptures and installations.

The installation created for the Met is called “ParaPivot,” and according to the museum it uses “steel and stone to evoke a miniature solar system.”

“New York still stands for one of the highest levels human beings can reach,” Ms. Kwade told The Times in February.

This is Ms. Kwade’s first solo exhibit at a museum in the United States, and it opens today.

“ParaPivot” will be on display through Oct. 27.

It’s Tuesday — raise the roof.

Metropolitan Diary: Watched the ballgame

Dear Diary:

Sat down Saturday afternoon and watched the ballgame
My team, the Mets, won 11-8
After that I headed to the local hangout where they serve tea, coffee and pastries
Saw a woman I know who does appraisals
She said she was buying a house in Maine
Two attractive young women were reading novels
Mentioned to them the Joyce Carol Oates story “Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?”
They said they never read it
Maybe they should

— Matthew Anish

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