For Some Cyclists, Storage is Biggest Challenge

Tue June 16 2009
Posted Jun 16, 2009
8,026

In a city of tight living quarters and unaccommodating corporate towers, the biggest cycling challenge can be finding a good place store one’s ride when it is not in use. For James Rather, an urban planner whose Riverdale walk-up does not have a storage option, lugging his bike up three flights to his apartment every time he rides is a “constant hassle” and a sometime danger. “I use clipless pedals on my road bike,” Mr. Rather, 28, wrote in an e-mail message, “with the large cleats on the bottom that make you walk like a duck.” As he was going out for a ride on a recent weekend morning, Mr. Rather slipped on the marble and clattered down a flight of stairs, his bike following him. (Despite a “bruised forearm and a pretty sore lower back and rear end,” he went for the ride anyway. “It was a perfect Saturday morning.”) He stressed that on-the-street parking, even if it weren’t a risky option, is not available in his neighborhood; of the 400 or so city bike racks in the Bronx, none are in Riverdale. Kendra Borowski, on the other hand, is lucky enough to have indoor storage in her NoLIta building. “I keep my single-speed, daily commuter bike in a closet in the hallway outside my apartment,” she wrote in an e-mail message. She wrote that it is “technically a utility closet — it has a sink and everything.” “It can lock,” she wrote. “I have to prop the bike up vertically to fit it in there!” The only catch: Ms. Borowski, 30, has to sherpa her ride up seven flights to get it there. A survey by the City Department of Planning found that a lack of bike parking options at home and at work was a primary reason more people were not commuting by bike. The solution the planning department came up with: requiring new buildings to provide parking. “You have to reach a certain critical mass for this to work, and we’re there,” said Amanda M. Burden, the city planning commissioner. The new zoning requirements, adopted in April, include one bike space for every two residential units in buildings with more than 10 apartments, or for every 7,500 feet of commercial office space. In other words, if the Empire State Building had been built under the new rules, it would have around 350 bike spaces. “This begins to knit together the whole mayoral strategy” for bikes, she added. Despite having a storage rack in her building on Madison Avenue, Ms. Burden said she faced the need for more bike spots every time she tried to go for a weekend ride. “The rack can fit about three bikes,” she said, “and there’s 10 in there. I have to unentangle my bike every time I go.” Her building would have three times many spaces under the new rules. RSVP Architecture Studio RSVP Architecture Studio’s vision of indoor bike parking calls for a user-friendly system with ceiling-mounted bungie cords and a grooved floor.Last October, as part of the CityRacks Design Competition, the city recognized two innovative design proposals for indoor bike parking, awarding each a $5,000 prize. One winner of the competition, RSVP Architecture Studio, proposed a user-friendly system with ceiling-mounted bungie cords and a grooved floor. “Its structural grid provides a secure yet flexible system that could be easily adapted to any building environment,” the city said approvingly. The other winners, Jessica Lee and Anthony Lau of London, proposed [pdf] a system of three modular pieces that could be installed in an unlimited number of combinations to conform to rooms large or small, tall or short. For now, those ideas remain more conceptual than real. But already, ample bike storage is available in a handful of new green developments in Battery Park City. “The rooms are jammed packed — it’s very very popular,” said Michael Gubbins, who manages the Solaire, the Verdesian and the Visionaire. Each has more than 200 indoor bike spaces, in addition to outdoor racks, he said. On the side end of the commuting coin, City Councilman David Yassky has been trying to get office buildings to allow workers to take their bikes inside. His “bikes in buildings” bill had its second City Council hearing Monday, and Mr. Yassky is confident he has more than enough votes to get it passed “in the next few weeks.” “I think access to office buildings will allow for another doubling” of bike commuters, he said, citing the city planning survey. “All it involves is putting a couple hooks on the wall in a storage room, in a closet, or leaning up against a wall in your office.” But, as Gersh Kuntzman discovered to his dismay in March, having secure bike storage at work or at home does not guarantee a secure bike. Mr. Kuntzman, the editor of The Brooklyn Paper, had his Trek stolen from a lock-up room in a Dumbo office building. The room had a system of wall-mounted hooks and light gauge steel wires commonly found in bike parking areas in large residential and commercial buildings (including the Times Building.) “The bike was locked to a specially provided bracket and chain on the wall!” Mr. Kuntzman wrote in a column after the theft. “Clearly, someone doesn’t want me biking to work.” The theft was the second to strike Mr. Kuntzman in less than a year; in July, a thief “with a cigarette behind his ear” made off with Mr. Kuntzman’s Marin road bike, which had been locked to the gate in front yard of his Park Slope home. A similar theft occurred last month in the bike room at Beacon High School, according to Lucca Zeray, a student: “Some person came in and tried to steal my friend’s bike.” Recognizing the bike, another friend gave chase, finally catching the thief. “The guy gives him a dollar thinking that will convince him to not call the cops. The guy runs away and my friend rides back, completely out of breath.” The bottom line, said a colleague at The Times who had his $1,400 Cannondale stolen off a rack in the parking lot of his apartment building: no matter how secure the room, always lock your bike.