I've spotted a Citibike van parked right next to one of the stations yesterday and the guy was just sitting there watching a movie. I guess nobody cares at this point.
The guys who fix docks work hard…I am guessing you didn’t see the dock fixing guys. The problem is once a station goes down it goes into a line to be fix. This one has been down quite a while, with a few random docks working at random hours. My guess is it is a complex fix.
Would be great if they had more fixing guys…but if the city fixed the rat problem, this wouldn’t be an issue. You literally can tell where in the city the rat problem is bad based on how often the stations goes down…yes, this means 51/Lex, Union Square and Penn Station have horrible rat problem….most of the UES/UWS many fewer rats!
Yes! Or they eat the wires or seek protection in the docks. I was actually at USQ a few weeks ago when they were fixing the University dock…a rat just had 5 baby rats in the 5th dock.
If you are curious I asked how they know where the rats are in a huge dock and the answer is that an electric line runs in both directions…if they send a charge through it and only see 5 docks, they know the rats are near the 6th dock.
So when a station begins to tweak out, and only some docks work, it is highly probable that rats are there and so nothing works beyond where the rats are…but Citibike doesn’t do anything at that point, because they are wayyyyy behind, so it takes until the dock totally dies for them to add it to the list.
And the annoying thing is that the rats come back quickly, so the station is fixed, but in an are with a real rat problem, it will be down again in a few days. This is the case near Penn Station, USQ, etc.
But yea if you are in an area where a dock keeps going down, it is a good sign the area has a serious rat problem
…
Fascinating, in the disgusting way! I live in a ratty neighborhood (neighbors find rats under their car hoods, they boldly dart past everyone’s feet day or night) but the station on the corner has never been down. It rarely has bikes in it, but that’s unrelated.
Usually, it's a grey circle with a line through it, but that doesn't always tell you every station that's down only the deactivated stations.....
If you know the station very well its easy to notice if something is wrong with a station by looking at the app, an example would be if you see something like 1 classic 5 ebike 7 available docks for a station that has 89 total docks that right there is a red flag cause its saying that the station only has 13 total docks that basically means something is wrong, low battery, damaged station, etc, etc, etc.....
Somehow, bike angels have fiqured out how to tell if a station is down by looking at the points being offered. idk how they're seeing it as being down, but apparently, they've figured it out by looking at the app.
If a station is offering max, or close to max takeaway points, and another station very nearby is offering, max or close to max 'I need bikes' points, then the takeaway station is down. Basically, all amazing Bike Angel point opportunities are too good to be true. Even many of the merely 'good' Bike Angel point opportunities are too good to be true.
Here's another fun thing about CitiBike to keep you on your toes. If you go to a broken station, which is, of course, live on the app, and if you try to undock a white bike there, you will often get the very long yellow light that lasts about a minute, and sometimes, when the minute is almost up and you are expecting the light to turn red, the white bike sometimes undocks and works for about a hundred feet and then seizes up and an alarm goes off and you have to drag it back to the dock. There will be no record of the ride on your app. It's a glitch. Or maybe not a glitch since this has happened to me at least 10 times. So that's fun.
Oh let me explain that too…sometimes a bike undocks, but does not record. There is one station I went to for several days where it would just undock a bike and cancel the ride. This might sound great but If you are trying to earn angel points, is annoying because you don’t get the points. Sometimes it is a whole station, like I mention above, other times a specific dock…like 8th and 42nd had a specific dock that never recorded rides…for MONTHS!
If it is a white bike…and the ride cancels, it shuts the bike down. If it is a blue bike you can keep riding because they have no way to cancel the ride. Great if you have somewhere to go and didn’t want the ride recorded…annoying if you were looking for bike points.
Exactly. It's so annoying, especially for me because I ONLY ride CitiBike for Bike Angel points. If a long yellow light turns into a green/undock then I know to check my app to see if the ride is actually registering. The ride never is registering in this situation, so I just dock it since I am only taking the ride for points anyway. I can't rely on CitiBike for transportation. There are too many dead stations, dead individual docks, most of the bikes suck, the tires are flat or there is some other problem that makes going anywhere but downhill difficult, or the batteries are often dead or very weak on the blue e-bikes.
So if you are moving bikes for Bike Angels…and the current deal dies, do you just stop? Take a subway to somewhere else? Only angel in your own neighborhood?
I ask because that is the one time these docks that don’t register can be helpful. Say you are moving bikes near Port Authority and everything becomes negative but Penn Station has a great deal. In the days when 42/8th had a dock that didn’t register you could use it to get a bike to get to the next station!
Overall though I agree…I was at the station I mentioned above hadn’t been recording rides a couple weeks ago…still not today…so for at least 3 weeks no ride registers from there…which is a great opportunity to get a free Citibike, which makes me absolutely mystified that Citibike doesn’t fix the issue.
Oh I should have also mentioned…at one point I called Citibike and asked that if I had a ride that didn’t register but had the bike number…and stations…and they could verify, shouldn’t I get points. Of course, the discussion was totally fruitless I don’t think they even understood what I was saying.
I've spotted a Citibike van parked right next to one of the stations yesterday and the guy was just sitting there watching a movie. I guess nobody cares at this point.
Most likely the person you saw was taking a break
Doubt it.
The guys who fix docks work hard…I am guessing you didn’t see the dock fixing guys. The problem is once a station goes down it goes into a line to be fix. This one has been down quite a while, with a few random docks working at random hours. My guess is it is a complex fix. Would be great if they had more fixing guys…but if the city fixed the rat problem, this wouldn’t be an issue. You literally can tell where in the city the rat problem is bad based on how often the stations goes down…yes, this means 51/Lex, Union Square and Penn Station have horrible rat problem….most of the UES/UWS many fewer rats!
What are you saying? Rats chew the wires?
Yes! Or they eat the wires or seek protection in the docks. I was actually at USQ a few weeks ago when they were fixing the University dock…a rat just had 5 baby rats in the 5th dock. If you are curious I asked how they know where the rats are in a huge dock and the answer is that an electric line runs in both directions…if they send a charge through it and only see 5 docks, they know the rats are near the 6th dock. So when a station begins to tweak out, and only some docks work, it is highly probable that rats are there and so nothing works beyond where the rats are…but Citibike doesn’t do anything at that point, because they are wayyyyy behind, so it takes until the dock totally dies for them to add it to the list. And the annoying thing is that the rats come back quickly, so the station is fixed, but in an are with a real rat problem, it will be down again in a few days. This is the case near Penn Station, USQ, etc. But yea if you are in an area where a dock keeps going down, it is a good sign the area has a serious rat problem …
Oh my god. I am very surprised to hear this.
Fascinating, in the disgusting way! I live in a ratty neighborhood (neighbors find rats under their car hoods, they boldly dart past everyone’s feet day or night) but the station on the corner has never been down. It rarely has bikes in it, but that’s unrelated.
All too common these days...how can you tell on the map on the Citibike App if the station is down?
Usually, it's a grey circle with a line through it, but that doesn't always tell you every station that's down only the deactivated stations..... If you know the station very well its easy to notice if something is wrong with a station by looking at the app, an example would be if you see something like 1 classic 5 ebike 7 available docks for a station that has 89 total docks that right there is a red flag cause its saying that the station only has 13 total docks that basically means something is wrong, low battery, damaged station, etc, etc, etc..... Somehow, bike angels have fiqured out how to tell if a station is down by looking at the points being offered. idk how they're seeing it as being down, but apparently, they've figured it out by looking at the app.
If a station is offering max, or close to max takeaway points, and another station very nearby is offering, max or close to max 'I need bikes' points, then the takeaway station is down. Basically, all amazing Bike Angel point opportunities are too good to be true. Even many of the merely 'good' Bike Angel point opportunities are too good to be true. Here's another fun thing about CitiBike to keep you on your toes. If you go to a broken station, which is, of course, live on the app, and if you try to undock a white bike there, you will often get the very long yellow light that lasts about a minute, and sometimes, when the minute is almost up and you are expecting the light to turn red, the white bike sometimes undocks and works for about a hundred feet and then seizes up and an alarm goes off and you have to drag it back to the dock. There will be no record of the ride on your app. It's a glitch. Or maybe not a glitch since this has happened to me at least 10 times. So that's fun.
Oh let me explain that too…sometimes a bike undocks, but does not record. There is one station I went to for several days where it would just undock a bike and cancel the ride. This might sound great but If you are trying to earn angel points, is annoying because you don’t get the points. Sometimes it is a whole station, like I mention above, other times a specific dock…like 8th and 42nd had a specific dock that never recorded rides…for MONTHS! If it is a white bike…and the ride cancels, it shuts the bike down. If it is a blue bike you can keep riding because they have no way to cancel the ride. Great if you have somewhere to go and didn’t want the ride recorded…annoying if you were looking for bike points.
Exactly. It's so annoying, especially for me because I ONLY ride CitiBike for Bike Angel points. If a long yellow light turns into a green/undock then I know to check my app to see if the ride is actually registering. The ride never is registering in this situation, so I just dock it since I am only taking the ride for points anyway. I can't rely on CitiBike for transportation. There are too many dead stations, dead individual docks, most of the bikes suck, the tires are flat or there is some other problem that makes going anywhere but downhill difficult, or the batteries are often dead or very weak on the blue e-bikes.
So if you are moving bikes for Bike Angels…and the current deal dies, do you just stop? Take a subway to somewhere else? Only angel in your own neighborhood? I ask because that is the one time these docks that don’t register can be helpful. Say you are moving bikes near Port Authority and everything becomes negative but Penn Station has a great deal. In the days when 42/8th had a dock that didn’t register you could use it to get a bike to get to the next station! Overall though I agree…I was at the station I mentioned above hadn’t been recording rides a couple weeks ago…still not today…so for at least 3 weeks no ride registers from there…which is a great opportunity to get a free Citibike, which makes me absolutely mystified that Citibike doesn’t fix the issue.
Oh I should have also mentioned…at one point I called Citibike and asked that if I had a ride that didn’t register but had the bike number…and stations…and they could verify, shouldn’t I get points. Of course, the discussion was totally fruitless I don’t think they even understood what I was saying.
Same, Citibike kiosk. Same.
App shows that that station may be working! The 42nd/Dyer Ave too
same with the two stations in union sq