April 28, 2025

The life and times of Citi Bike #32606

Aaron Gordon, who is a data reporter at Bloomberg News, has been working on his coding skills. And so for absolutely no reason whatsoever, he decided to map out the life of one of New York's Citi Bikes, specifically Citi Bike #32606. The dataset is pre-pandemic because Citi Bike stopped publishing unique bike identifiers for each trip around 2020. But based on historical data and far as we know, #32606 is the most-used traditional bike (i.e. not an e-bike) in the history of the Citi Bike network.

It began its life on October 15, 2017 at 11:08am in Park Slope, Brooklyn, and then went on to accomplish 7,060 miles (~11,361 kilometers) and 8,624 trips over a period of 806 days. This works out to an average of just over 10 trips per day. In total, this bike traveled the equivalent of a return trip from New York to Los Angeles, and then a short trip up to Burlington, Vermont. And it was all done with only leg power.

Here's the visual mapping that Aaron created:

What I love about this passion project is that it starts to show just how impactful something as simple as a single shared bicycle can be for a city. These bike networks are relatively new, but they're already doing a lot of heavy lifting when it comes to urban mobility. Earlier this week, we learned that in the City of London, cyclists now make up 2x the number of people in cars. And that of the people cycling, 17% of them do so using a shared bicycle.

In the case of New York, the Citi Bike network had ~128,000 active members and ~34,000 bikes as of February 2025. What you're seeing above is the story of just one them.

Cover photo by Spenser Sembrat on Unsplash

Longtime readers of this blog might remember a post that I published back in 2016 where I talked about the genesis story of Toronto-based developer David Wex and his company Urban Capital Property Group. In it, I wrote about his first project at 29 Camden Street in the Fashion District. It had a total of 55 condominium suites and an average price per square foot of ~$195. And it took somewhere around 2 years to pre-sell enough of the suites for construction financing.

The reason I bring this up today is because when I originally wrote the post, it seemed so far from reality. In 2016, I said that these same 55 suites could be sold within 2 hours at $800 psf! But now things have changed once again. The market realities that David was facing in the mid-90s with Camden Lofts feel remarkably similar to today. Selling even 55 suites might not be a sure thing. And this is the first time in over 2 decades that the market has been like this.

So for fun, let's consider what happened in the late 80s and 90s. The Toronto housing market peaked in 1989 at an average price of approximately $273,698 (according to the Toronto Regional Real Estate Board). It then went on to decline 27% over the next 7 years, finally bottoming out at approximately $198,150 in 1996. So it took around 8 years for the market to stabilize.

Of course, the market took even longer to return to its 1989 peak. The average home price crossed $275,000 in 2002, which means it took 13 years in nominal dollars. However, $275k in 1989 is the equivalent of around $610k in today's dollars. So in real dollars, it actually took until 2011 for the market to return to its prior peak, which is some 22 years later!

I'm not arguing that the exact same thing will play out with this cycle. Who knows, Toronto is a different city. But I have suggested that 2028 could be the year where we're on the other side of this downturn. The average home price peaked, most recently, in 2022 at ~$1,194,600. Since then, it has come down by around 8.5% (as a broad average). If the market does turn positive in 2028, that'll be 6 years after the peak.

Only time will tell.

Chart from the Toronto Regional Real Estate Board; cover photo by Melvin Lai on Unsplash

April 26, 2025

Most people cycle in the City of London

The City of London, also known as the "Square Mile," is the financial district of London. Some 678,000 people work in the area, nearly 9,000 people live in it, and millions visit it each year. So it's an intensely used square mile (~1.12 square miles or ~2.9 square kilometers). Given this intensity, do you think that it would be reasonable, or even possible, for all 678,000 people to drive their own car to work and not experience crippling traffic congestion?

Obviously not, and the data reflects that:

Motor vehicle usage within the City of London is nearly a third of what it was in 1999. This is a result of moves like the city's Congestion Charge (introduced in 2003) and new Cycling Superhighways (introduced between 2015-16).
Cycling increased 57% from 2022 to 2024. Personal bike usage increased 36%. Shared dockless bike usage increased 4x and now makes up 17% of all people cycling. During daytime hours (7am to 7pm) cycling represents about 39% of all on-street traffic, which is nearly 2x the amount of cars and private hires. And based on current trends, cycling is forecasted to become the dominant all-around mode of transport within as soon as two years.
People walking, wheeling, and cycling now make up three quarters of all travel, up from two-thirds in 2022. This is a huge percentage.