CitiBike is an incredibly useful service if you live in Manhattan. Stations are almost always a minimum of 2 blocks away and usually have bikes. I live in uptown in Harlem and have never had issues finding a bike close by. Most, if not all bikes are working it’s easy to notify CitiBike if they are inoperable. This is an essential transit option if you’re traveling east to west or vice versa and much more reliable and faster than buses!I have two recommendations: help tickets and station fixing status.Help tickets: Making a help ticket is very easy and quick for bikes or stations alike. The problem is knowing if anything is getting resolved. When you depend on a station nearby to have bikes but the station has been down for weeks and either not accepting bikes or not unlocking bikes, it starts to feel like nobody is listening. This happens to me at some stations in my area every change of season. It could be weather related, but nonetheless, it takes weeks for them to get fixed and I have to change my route due to this issue. I’d appreciate more feedback on the help ticket resolution if possible🙂Station fixing status: Part B of my comment above is that CitiBike needs to add some sort of notification in the app that a station has been flagged by users as not usable. When a station is listed as having 25 bikes, but none are being able to be undocked, this can be very frustrating. It’s even more frustrating when you’ve been submitting help tickets for weeks and the map still shows it as 25 bikes…but all unusable. Please fix this CitiBike!Otherwise, this is a very dependable and economical service that I thrive on for exercise and transit!

I think citibike is an awesome tool for people to commute and get places when the trains/buses/cabs, or walking, aren’t portions. I have my own bike but it’s been getting maintenance, so I decided to try out the citibike for the first time. The gear system on these things really isn’t that great, you can pedal very hard but not really cover that much ground like a true bike. Also on my second time ever, the bike would not lock in the station...it was 3 am, and the subways and buses were not operating properly. The man on the phone told me to go to another station where there were 5 docks a few blocks away. I get there and there was only one dock and Again, the bike would not lock! I was starting to get charged overage, so I called again and asked what I could do, and I was told unfortunately I had to go to another station. I said that I was just told to go to THIS station but that the guy was wrong because there was only one dock and that I just wanted to be refunded and if I could just leave the bike but that I couldn’t leave the Bike because I would get charged for damages ....he then hung up on me. I called ONE last time and the lady said that she would send me an email, that, if I DO get charged, the email will basically cover me. I cannot wait to delete this app and my account...just waiting to make sure I don’t get charged some ridiculous fee....never riding citibike again.

Awhile back I had a citibike stolen from me at the charging station. Immediately after the incident occurred, I called citibike and reported it to them. They informed me I needed to report the incident to the NYPD. It was late, so I couldn’t do it that night, but I was still charged up to $300 for the ride. I reported the theft to the NYPD, who investigated the incident. Citibike informed that, in order to not be charged the $300 for the ride and the $1000 for the lost bike, I needed to provide them with the police report. I sent them the slip provided to me by the NYPD stating I submitted a complaint, and the number of the detective. After several calls with citibike customer service, they still insisted that I needed to submit the official police report. After calling the NYPD, I discovered that the only way to really get the report was through a long process of requests, which would likely still not allow me access to the report as, technically, citibike was the victim since it was their bike. Even still, citibike would not refund me. I ended up successfully disputing the charge through my bank. If citibike is going to release a fleet of very expensive bikes into NYC, they need a better system in the event of theft. I’d rather swim across the east river than use citibike again.

I docked my bike at Governor’s Island on Saturday, only realizing I hadn’t done it correctly once the last ferry back to the island had left from Brooklyn. Bridge Park. That Saturday evening Tropical Storm Henri rolled in and made it impossible and completely unsafe to get to the island to redock the bike for the rest of the weekend. I sent countless messages through the app trying to get support for the situation and didn’t receive any answer until Sunday morning. The answer I did receive was a canned response that barely provided any form of solution, instead urging me to go redock the bike on an island during a hurricane. They offered to send an operation team but gave no details on what that meant and never elaborated even though I asked continuously. Their latest email informed me the bike is now considered missing and that I’ll be charged the $1200. Citibike riders know that these docks are terrible - individual docks tricky to successfully use and oftentimes entire docks out of commission. To have such terrible customer service and such strict policies is ridiculous and to have absolutely no flexibility during a weather emergency is unacceptable.