Bicycle Facilities for Penn Station and Port Authority Commuters

I daily commute by taking a bus from Summit, NJ to New York City. Actually, the park and ride station where the bus stops does not have a bike rack. So, they do not promote the use of bike. But that is another story.

As I take the bus from NJ to Port Authority and then take the MTA train to CCNY, I thought that would be nice to, instead of taking the train, bike to the school. So, I thought to give it a shot to the Citi Bike since there are a lot of stations around Port Authority. On my way to the city, around 6:40am, I downloaded the Citi Bike app and started to look for available bikes. For my surprise at 6:55am there were just 7 bikes available from 201 docks around Port Authority. At 6:58am, I looked a little farther and just 6 bikes were available from 164 docks around Penn Station.

I arrived at Port Authority around 7:10am and started walking to Broadway since the 42st and 8^th Avenue was empty since I was in the bus. At Broadway & W 39 St., there was 0 bikes from 50 docks available according to the application. However, there were two bikes in the docks and according to the machine they were available to use. Also, I noticed that this station has a lot of space around it.

But walking a little farther to the south, I found this public space which I guess should be shared with bikers, because there was no bike line in the area but Citi bike stations, and it has a lot of tables and chairs.

Then, the 37^th st and Broadway station was empty, too.

Just one broken bike.

Another station, 36^th st and Broadway, was empty, too. Actually, the public space was dirty with a lot of trash with there were homeless people sit in the chairs. 

Everything got more interesting when I got into Herald Square. There were a lot of public spaces in the area and a bike line right next to the street. Also, a couple of police who, I guess are there for traffic but did not care about bikers.

There was a very interesting variety between people using helmet or not. In addition, others using the bike line or riding in the street.

 

The condition of the bike line was not pleasant to use and unsafe with a lot of stagnant water.

Other empty lots in the 33^rd st and 6^th Ave and 33^rd and 7^th Ave.

At least, I saw some people stopping at the red light.

Right next to the Penn Station (33^rd and 7^th Ave), there was a lot of people riding without helmet and against the traffic. Actually, there was a lot of traffic, noise and people walking around.

Finally, I walked into the train station to go to school around 7:50 am. I did not see people carrying helmets from NJ transit trains. My conclusion is that most of the people who come from NJ using the Penn Station trains or Port Authority buses and bike to their jobs do not carry helmets. Also, that there are a lot of people using the Citi Bikes. Interesting, most of the people I saw with helmets were using their own bikes. My suggestion is to increase the number of bikes in the stations because people that arrived to NYC around 7 to 8 am, which is the rush hour, are not able to rent any bike.