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In yet another reminder to the city that bikers matter, Transportation Alternatives notes that with the number of New Yorkers riding a bike increasing by 10%, even more bike racks need to be installed. NYC now has about 112,000 bike riders, but only 3,400 bike racks have been installed since 1996; on the other hand, Chicago has "10,000 racks for its 42,000 daily riders." (Newsday) Therefore, until there are more bike racks, Transportation Alternatives is saying that bicyclists need the right to lock their bikes to lightposts, signposts, trees, you name it. Aha! Gothamist sees this as a loophole when people try to fight tickets for locking their bikes to such objects...or as more reason to why the police can't remove locked bikes.
Do you have a hard time finding places to lock your bike? Learn more about the measures Transportation Alternatives is taking to make sure it's easier to bike, walk, and take public transit in the city.
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If you read the press release and reports, you can see that TA is *not* advocating the right to lock to trees. This is currently illegal, as doing so is damaging to the trees.
Apparently locking to signs, etc is not illegal, but it is not expressly legal either. The City needs to clarify this, and to make a clear, fair, cross-agency policy to deal with abandoned bicycles.
I have often said that if there was a place for me to lock up my bike, I would definately ride my bike to work. You really can't beat the cost and realibility as well as the ability to forego traffic! Unfortunately, in midtown my choices are pretty weak.
It amazes me that bike racks are blatantly ignored even on major public projects in the city. For example, if you head to the new Time Warner center...which is right next to the freakin' Park at Columbus Circle...you'll notice that there isn't a single bike rack. It's not for lack of space, either...it's just a lack of consideration.
It doesn't help that even where there are bike racks (the only place I can think of is in front of St. Mark's Bookstore on 9th St), people don't know how to park their bikes properly and end up taking more than their share of the pipe.
I can't remember the last time I locked my bike on an actual bike rack.
some dude: It's more than lack of consideration -- TimeWarner has a policy of no bike racks, apparently. Nice corporate citizen, eh?
http://transalt.org/press/askta/040922.html#letters (scroll down a bit)
There also needs to be a critical mass in the bike racks department, because so many of the bikes locked to bike racks are abandoned or semi-abandoned. So the city needs to get to the point where there are more rack spaces than abandoned bikes on them. Either that, or they need somebody to come around every once in a while and clear the dead bikes off of the racks. Not sure exactly how they would determine which ones were dead, though. Perhaps by taking note of the license plate number on the bike. Just kidding.
Would people pay to lock their bikes up in a commercial lot? I don't know how much a parking lot would have to charge to make it profitable, but an awful lot of bikes would fit in one or two car parking spaces. Instead of parking one car at $10/hr, wouldn't the parking companies make more money having ten bikes at $2/hour?
you can mark abandoned bikes like how meter people track 2 hour parking. Chalk the tire.