Pedal-Assist Dockless Bikes Roll Out in the Bronx

NEW YORK — For years, residents of the Bronx have looked at Manhattan and parts of Queens and Brooklyn with a bit of bike-share envy. Citi Bike was not an option in the borough.

But that bike-share void changed Monday when the Department of Transportation launched its dockless bike pilot program in the Bronx, the last borough to get a bike-share program.

The fleet of 200 atomic red bikes by the company Jump, installed in the Fordham area in the Central Bronx, are all pedal-assist bikes. The bikes have a motor that makes pedaling easier by giving riders a boost of power, topping out at 20 mph. (Legislation allowing pedal-assist bikes in the city went into effect Saturday.)

The Jump bikes are also dockless, meaning they don’t have a dedicated parking dock, like Citi Bike. Instead, riders lock them to a bike racks or poles in the neighborhood. The bikes, which cost $2 for a 30-minute ride, can be accessed and paid for through the Uber and Jump apps.

On Monday, a steady stream of curious passers-by inspected one of the Jump bikes that was parked outside the Full Moon pizzeria on Arthur Avenue and 187th Street in the Bronx.

“I think the bikes will make the city feel a lot smaller and it will be great for business,” said Stan Petti, 57, the owner of Full Moon. “We don’t have a lot of buses in this neighborhood so these bikes are really important. They should have been here years ago.”

The Jump bikes are part of the city’s expanding dockless bikes share program. Since mid-July, more than 800 free-standing bikes have been rolled out to the Rockaways, Staten Island and now the Bronx, bringing bike-share options to neighborhoods not covered in previous Citi Bike expansions. The city plans on installing more in the coming months.

Riding a pedal-assist bike feels a bit like getting training wheels off for the first time, except that initial invisible push by a parent comes from the motor installed on the back wheel.

The motor “senses the amount of energy put in, and it gives a push back in the amount of energy detected,” said Nelle Pierson, a spokeswoman for Jump, who was in the Bronx on Monday speaking about the neighborhood’s new bikes.

As Pierson explained how the bikes worked in front of the Prince Coffee House on Arthur Avenue, Victor Sanchéz, 30, a butcher on his way to work, rolled up on a bicycle he had borrowed from a friend and asked how he could sign up.

He had a debit card, he said, “but paying in cash is better.”

Pierson said that Jump users could also pay with cash at certain locations, like CVS, 7-Eleven and Family Dollar Stores. Jump also has subscriptions available for low-income riders, similar to Lime and Pace, two dockless bike-share operators in the Rockaways.

The pilot program will last for six months, when it will be reviewed by the Department of Transportation.

More than 300 free-standing bikes were introduced in the Rockaways on July 13, during the first phase of the city’s dockless bike expansion. But the rollout has not been celebrated by everyone.

Some residents in the Rockaways, like Luis Carrero Jr., 56, call the bikes a nuisance. Pace bikes there require riders to lock the bike to a rack or a pole; Lime bikes must be left in designated zones.

“People take the bikes and leave them wherever, in front of your house, next to your car, you see them literally all over the place,” said Carrero, who has lived in the Rockaways for nearly two decades. “The sidewalks are jammed with them and just left there, thrown on the sidewalk, in no order.”

Carrero added that he would be more welcoming of the bikes if they had “a designated spot.”

Two Lime bikes have been damaged since mid-July, according to a spokesman for Lime, but he noted that number is similar to vandalism rates for dockless bike programs elsewhere in the U.S.

Carmen de Jesus, who was snapping a photo of one of the bikes in a pedestrian plaza in the Bronx, also thought about the potential for vandalism.

“I don’t know how it will work in this neighborhood,” she said. “There are a lot of rowdy teenagers, and they could damage the bicycles. Let’s see how it turns out.”