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pixel_of_moral_decay t1_j293kop wrote

Reply to comment by sheerfire96 in Citi Bike bumps up prices by 11% starting in the New Year | amNewYork by King-of-New-York

Also it’s been at the same price for years.

That still is at or a little below inflation for the whole time.

Unless you’re advocating for lowering the wages for already underpaid by Motivate/Lyft employees … who is known for being an employee friendly company.

The price didn’t really go up. It just adjusted for inflation.

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vowelqueue t1_j2dyitn wrote

Here is a brief (incomplete) history of Citi Bike annual membership prices I pulled from my records.

Year Price
2013 95
2015 149
2016 155
2017 163
2018 169
2021 179
2022 185
2023 205

There's obviously a huge spike from $95 -> $149. From 2015's price of $149 to the new price of $205, I think this slightly outpaces inflation. I would certainly disagree with the notion that the pricing has remained the same for years, as it is consistently increased most years.

The larger prices increases are from the e-bikes, which have increased from 10 cents per minute with a $2 cap for all rides starting or ending outside of Manhattan (when they were reintroduced late 2019/2020), to 17 cents per minute with a $3 cap for all rides entering or exiting Manhattan. That's like a 50%-200% increase over 3 years.

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d2d2d2d2d2 t1_j2espke wrote

Thank you! God forbid someone bring some actual data to this conversation...

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Bangkok_Dangeresque t1_j29mm1h wrote

>Unless you’re advocating for lowering the wages for already underpaid by Motivate/Lyft employees … who is known for being an employee friendly company.

There's other ways that they could raise revenue besides hiking the annual membership for commuters.

They could do additional advertising/corporate sponsorships. Sell more bulk passes to businesses. Increase rates for single rides/day passes targeting tourists. Seek additional funding from the state/grants. They could change the pricing model on the e-bikes from an additional fee per minute to a premium tier for those who opt-in.

I'm sure they considered all this. But the issue is that they, as a private entity, is optimizing for profit, while the city would want them to optimize for offloading trips from other transit/individual cars. Considering all the public space we've given to them, it's surprising the city isn't flexing its muscles a bit more.

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pixel_of_moral_decay t1_j29n6j3 wrote

This isn’t raising revenue. This is maintaining revenue during inflation.

Just like a cost of living raise isn’t extra money. It’s maintaining the status quo.

The city could just look to increase income tax slightly as an alternative. But that will never go over well, despite being a very equitable solution. Remember it only spans 1% between the top and bottom brackets. Up to 1 fucking percent extra is all the richest in the city pay.

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Bangkok_Dangeresque t1_j29rakr wrote

>This isn’t raising revenue. This is maintaining revenue during inflation.

That's semantics. I wasn't suggesting that they were raising prices just for the sake of improving profitability. Just that their costs are going up and so they need to increase revenues or else operate the system at a reduced profit or even a loss.

That said, Citibike's parent company Lyft has been on a tear of price increases and operational cost-cutting across all of its divisions following big declines in their stock price. Municipal programs like bike and scooter rentals have seen layoffs and price hikes in many cities.

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>The city could just look to increase income tax slightly as an alternative

City taxes don't pay for Citibike. It's completely privately-funded (with the exception of community grants for NYCHCA residents, and city employee subsidized memberships).

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pixel_of_moral_decay t1_j29wg24 wrote

The city could look to use tax dollars to subsidize it. Shift the top tax brackets up to 2.5% and increase everyone over $150k and you'd have that plus some extra money for schools.

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Bangkok_Dangeresque t1_j2a15td wrote

Sure, the city could raise income taxes to fund whatever it wants. Though it already has some of the highest individual state and local income taxes in the entire country.

But for Citibike in particular this is a terrible idea. The city shouldn't be subsidizing private companies that are perfectly capable of funding themselves, especially considering the public benefits they already get

In addition, Citibike had about 100,000 daily riders at its pre-pandemic peak. Meanwhile, the city has about 4 million households subject to city tax, ~25% of which have household incomes at or above the $150k threshold you're suggesting, so about 1 million households would be subsidizing the daily transit of 100,000. That's inefficient, and that money would be far better spent on other transit projects with more reach.

Lastly, hundreds of thousands of households who might be subject to that tax live in the large sections of Queens, Brooklyn, and all of Staten Island that are not served by Citibike at all. This is not equitable.

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