CitiBike is on ice.
Big Apple ridership has plummeted for the Lyft-owned bike-sharing service after deadly Winter Storm Fern dumped over a foot of snow on the city – with the majority of stations still unusable due to snow buildup more than a week later, The Post has learned.
“Most of the snow wasn’t cleaned up,” fumed cyclist Emily Oberlin, who bikes daily from Grand Central Station to her nonprofit job in Hell’s Kitchen.
Oberlin, 36, said she had to search multiple “inaccessible” trash- or snow-covered docking stations before finding a spot to park an e-bike.
Only about 500 of CitiBike’s 2,925 active stations across the boroughs – or just 17% – have been cleaned by the company as of Tuesday, a rep said.
The snow has become an icy obstacle even at docking stations that are available, with sites covered in sheets of dangerous ice and several feet of snow that make it more difficult for cyclists to return their ride.
“Docks in FiDi have so much snow packed in them that the bikes don’t fit,” one X user wrote Tuesday. “We’re spending extra minutes on the end of the trip trying to shove the bike in and end the ride. Fix this.”
“20 minutes to dock this bike,” another wrote in a Sunday night post, accompanied by a photo of a CitiBike shoved into a snow-covered mess.
One docking station at West 45th Street & Eighth Avenue on Wednesday was almost completely submerged in residential recycling, as Sanitation Department pickup remains delayed due to the snowfall that walloped Gotham more than 10 days prior.
The news comes as CitiBike hiked its rates last month for the fifth year in a row, demanding 9% higher membership rates since 2025. The company blamed tariffs and rising operating costs from insurance to field staffing for the sudden price jump.
“It’s not really making sense with the prices are going up,” CitiBike user Mayo Martinez told The Post, “so I would say that’s really what’s pulling people away.
“You’re not getting the service [you pay for],” Martinez, 28, added. “You are raising up the prices, but you are not really doing much for the customers.”
CitiBike, which touted record ridership last year, reported an average of 68,391 rides per day in January 2025 (on par with last month’s daily average of 69,040 rides per day) – but only logged 125,000 rides in total since Jan. 25th’s monster snowfall.
“The snowstorm [and cold temperatures] have impacted our ridership,” a Lyft rep told The Post, noting the service closed for just under 24 hours during the storm’s peak from Jan. 25 to 26.
“We’re continuing active snow removal operations and working to clear additional stations as conditions allow,” the rep added.
“Our priority is ensuring safe access for riders throughout the city.”