(Now if there were more than one person working the register at each of these Duane Reades, I might actually go inside.)

All the same, the policy of no bike racks in the park is idiotic. they allow racks at other city parks, but not in Central Park. There are a dozen major destinations for people to visit in Central Park and the most convenient way to get to them is by bicycle. The city even rents bicycles for use in the park, but provides no racks.

The only two permanent racks in all of Central Park are next to the 96th St. tennis courts. They are probably the result of the kind of advocacy you are ascribing to block associations, by some organization of people who play tennis there.

I think my requests were ignored but I brought the matter to my block association, who agreed that racks were helpful, and submitted a request and suddenly my street has a bunch of racks

regards

The positive side of that is that CityRacks is an extraordinary government program in that all it involves is a request from one citizen directly to the responsible agency, and the agency usually quite reliably responds. That's extremely uncommon.

It took about six months, and some follow up on my part, before my request for racks in front of my office building was fulfilled, but to their credit, when they finally got to it, they also hit the big office building across the street at the same time (I didn't request that), and another spot I had requested racks for.

I am a bit frustrated by the CityRacks request program because I have requested racks at a number of locations in and near Central Park and none have been installed, nor have I gotten any response explaining why there are no CityRacks in Central Park.

A much better choice would be a business that uses employees on bicycle and treats those employees fairly.

If Rite Aid, CVS and Starbucks take up the challenge and also install (and pay for) bike racks in front of their stores. (and park their trucks responsibly)...

Then we would have maybe 70% of NYC covered and City Racks can concentrate on residential hoods like mine where delivery guys damage our struggling trees because theres nothing else to lock to.

Having run up against such culture myself a few times while making suggestions that would similarly only HELP the institution, not hurt it, I see Duane Reade's willingness to make the request as very uncommon, and a very positive change for the better from the usual.

Also-maybe now DOT will see a need to add staff to the City Racks program, which I believe is currently administered by ONE person (hats off to you, Jason).

However, if Duane Reade gets credit for a pro-bike initiative AND people see how it serves Duane Reade's interests as well as the public's... it might help bring the business community around to the idea that cyclists and pedestrians are far better for business than cars.