Many city bikeshares publish data for every single trip taken on their bikes, including each trip's start and end locations, and trip duration. Through these individual trips, we can analyze the overall trends of bikeshare trips in the United States. The visualizations below use bikeshare data from 11 major metropolitan areas including: Austin, Boston, Chicago, Chattanooga, Columbus, DC, Los Angeles, NYC, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, and San Francisco.
Some of the counts for each city different than what's reported on official city websites, which suggests that city officials may be using slightly different data than what's publicly published. In all cities, we've used what's been published directly by the bikeshare system. Some of these systems filter out trips that "are taken by staff as they service and inspect the system" and also "any trips that were below 60 seconds in length (potentially false starts or users trying to re-dock a bike to ensure it was secure)" (source)
The number of bikeshare trips has increased almost every year since the first US bikeshare was introduced in Washington D.C. The exception is in 2020, when COVID-19 forced many cities to implement social distancing. Since then, bikeshare trips have resumed their initial trajectory, reaching 54 million total bike trips in 2023.
Since launching in 2013, New York City has consistently lead all cities in total trips. In 2023, NYC surpassed 36 million rides, more than all other US cities combined. The city with the second most rides, Chicago, had just over 5.7 million rides.
When NYC is excluded, we can better see the trends of other individual cities. While most cities continue to see ridership increase every year, some cities such as Chicago, Boston, and SF may be seeing their trip counts plateau.
For cities with less than 1 million trips per year, we see a mixed bag. Some cities like Pittsburgh and Los Angeles are on an upswing, but the number of trips in Austin and Chattanooga have dropped in the past couple of years. Note that Chattanooga has yet to publish their 2023 data on their website.
Below you can select a city to better see its trends. Or select multiple cities to compare how trips vary across those cities.