That sounds like nonsense to me. Baltimore is broke and the bicycle fund is very very thin. Yet somehow we have old meters converted to racks all over the city. If we are doing it, then it can't be that difficult.

All they do is bolt a circle thing to the top of the meter pole... which seams a lot less difficult than ripping all those poles out of the ground and then re-pouring the concrete. Someone should do a spreadsheet to compare the price of one to the other. I'm wondering if funding for this was written into the contract for the Muni meters, or was it straight from bicycle funds.

Bike rack installation is a green job, and the City should hire more people to do it.

Chicago has something like 10,000+ bike racks. Does New York even have half that many? Chicago is about 1/3 the size of NYC. We should have 30,000 or more bike racks.

So I'd like to see at least one parking spot per block on either side of the street eliminated in favor of a sidewalk extension. They can have sheltered bike racks like at Union Sq. One of those can accommodate at least 6-10 bikes on top of several regular "single" bike racks interspersed along the street. Obviously not all streets would need it, but a neighborhood like the East Village would benefit greatly from something like this.

Separate topic/location: delivery bikes. When the restaurant in my building closes at night, they bring all the bikes inside. When the place opens in the morning for cleaning, re-stocking, etc., the bikes move out onto city-installed double-U racks on the corner. Once delivery time starts a few hours later, the bikes are mostly either out making deliveries or locked to themselves and leaning alongside the building. Any plan for delivery bikes would have to take into account these various usage patterns. It is not practical to put bikes inside when the restaurant is open, nor use an alley for parking at the restaurant when you are in and out for deliveries.

-H

Two years ago we had three bike racks on the block where I live which still wasn't enough to accommodate the 20 or more bicycles that would accumulate in the warmer months. People would chain their bikes to trees, tree guards, parking signs, and building fences.

This year, thanks to drunk parkers and [url=http://www.flickr.com/photos/stacyrosenstock/2338532088/in/set-72157603792192129/]well armed bike thieves,[/url] we're down to a single bike rack and some of the tree guards have gone missing too. As good as it might be to add new racks it's also important to maintain and replace the racks already in place.

Some time back Hunter College Students did a survey asking people to list the number of places they thought needed more bike racks. I remember suggesting the area around 23rd Street and Sixth Avenue, and apparently DOT listened. It certainly would be good to have an ongoing resource where we could not only suggest new locations for bike racks, but also report bike racks that have been damaged to destroyed.

While I love that bicycles are being used for utilitarian trips, most delivery bikes are just plain ugly and take up valuable sidewalk space as well as places for others to lockup.

http://www.streetsblog.org/wp-content/uploads/2009/01_01/2085628522_2097c3046f.jpg

On the east side on East 11th, there one spot where the meters are gone and while there is a bike rack, someone has sawed through it, rendering the rack pretty much functionless.

In the plus column, a string of bike racks just appeared on Bank Street where previously the bikes were mostly locked to fences.

For now there is scaffolding across the street that is good, but once that comes down I'll be out of luck in the immediate area of the grocery store.

More bike racks = good. Relying on parking meters = not.