When New York and Chicago decided to expand their public bike share systems a few years back, city officials tried to go about it democratically. Using community meetings, workshops and interactive maps, they asked the public where they wanted new bike stations to be built…

Ultimately, though, just a fraction of the docking stations were built in the places recommended by the public, according to our new research on participatory bike share planning in Chicago and New York.

New Yorkers suggested 2,000 sites as locations for new bike stations in their city, using the transportation department’s interactive online map. But our study, published in the Journal of the American Planning Association, shows that just 5 percent of bike docks built during the 2014-2015 expansion are located within 100 feet of suggested sites.
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