A recently introduced bill (Intro. 871) that mandates all new office and apartment buildings to include indoor parking spaces for bikes was a top discussion item. Intro. 871 requires different buildings to have a certain number of bike spaces based on square feet: office buildings are to have one space per 5,000 square feet; retail buildings are to have one space per 75,000 square feet; and residential buildings are to have one space for every two units if it has more than 10 units.
The bill’s companion legislation, Intro 780, would require that parking lots serving 50 or more vehicles also accommodate bikes. Another amendment, Intro. 38, would allow any person responsible for a building to make provisions to provide access to bicycle storage.
Advocacy group Transportation Alternatives calls on the Bloomberg administration to extend the law to current buildings.
Biking in NYC
According to Transportation Alternatives data, an estimated 131,000 New Yorkers use bicycles for transportation on a typical day—that’s less than one percent of the total population. The top reason why would-be bicyclists leave their bikes at home is the lack of safe parking, according to the Department of City Planning’s Bicycle Survey.
Janette Sadik-Khan, the commissioner of the New York City Department of Transportation, recounted the steps the NYDOT has taken to meet the City’s 2030 sustainability goals. “Over the past two and a half years, DOT has added over 150 miles of bike lanes and routes,” she said. DOT aims to double bike commuting by 2015 and triple it by 2020—and the public seems to be cooperating. Since 2007, bicycling has increased by 38 percent, according to Sadik-Khan. At this rate, the city will need to accommodate more bikers sooner.
With more bikers on the roads, city agencies have launched a safety campaign to remind drivers to watch out for bikers. “While we have made it safer for cyclists to get where they are going, they still do not have adequate parking when they arrive at the destination,” Sadik-Khan said.
To address this problem, last month the DOT chose the city’s new standard bike rack design through a global contest. The design by Denmark designers Ian Mahaffy and Maarten De Greeve was selected for widespread use across the city.
In another contest to promote indoor bike parking, the DOT and Transportation Alternatives held a Bike Friendly Business Competition to seek out the most bike-friendly firm in the City. Financial service firm Credit Suisse won the contest for providing its biking employees with card-swipe ID tags, air pumps for flat tires, and discounts to a nearby health club.
