PROSPECT HEIGHTS — More Citi Bike stations are rolling into the neighborhood soon and the city wants input on where they should go.
The Department of Transportation and Citi Bike will host a community forum next week with residents of Prospect Heights and Crown Heights to discuss the expansion of the bike sharing program into the area.
Citi Bike has already added 73 bike stations in Park Slope, Carroll Gardens, Gowanus and Red Hook this year as part of an expansion of the program into parts of Brooklyn, Queens and Upper Manhattan.
In advance of a new bike stations coming to Brooklyn Community Board 8 and 9 — which cover Prospect Heights, Crown Heights and Prospect-Lefferts Gardens — the DOT is meeting with residents to give them an overview of the program and to gather input about the placement of the bike docking stations, the DOT said.
The community input process to install the 73 new bike stations in western Brooklyn, overseen by Community Board 6, took more than a year and sparked heated debate among residents, including one Cobble Hill local who derailed a recent CB6 to protest the bike share program, yelling “you’re gonna hit me?” at a board member.
At the Oct. 19 planning workshop for CB8 and CB9, attendees will gather in small groups with staff from DOT and Motivate, the company that operates Citi Bike, to share their thoughts on station placement, a DOT spokesperson said.
There is not yet a precise timeline for the Citi Bike expansion to CB8 and CB9. This year, the bike share program expanded from 8,000 to 10,000 bicycles.
The Citi Bike planning workshop is set to take place at 6 p.m. and 7 p.m. (in two, hour-long sessions) on Wednesday, Oct. 19, at the Hope City Empowerment Center at 650 Washington Ave. in Prospect Heights. For more information, residents can call the Brooklyn branch of the DOT at (646) 892-1350.
