Streetsblog New York City

More evidence Jim Walden can use to show that no one is using bike lanes.  They’re all parked here!

Love it!

Wow those filled up fast.  I’m waiting for the calls to initiate market rate pricing on these spots. 

I wonder what angle the news will take to speak out against these.  I’m guessing terrorism.  I mean what if twelve extremists filled the frames and tires with explosives?!

Seriously though, it seems like a good use of the space all around.  One that benefits cyclists, pedestrians, and drivers.

Nice idea.  Besides providing much needed bike parking, it also prevents illegal car parking near the corner.  As a result, there are better lines of sight at that intersection which benefits everyone.  Really, everyone wins here.  My only complaint is more personal than with the design, and that’s basically that I don’t really feel comfortable using ANY type of outdoor bike parking.  My brother had 3 bikes stolen in the 1980s while chained outside.  I suppose that thought sticks with me.

I love that the bike parking daylights the intersection. Once again adding bicycle infrastructure makes the street safer for all users. Bike share stations should be done this way.

I’m just waiting for the next accident in this problem intersection. 

How long till a car smashes through the bike pile?

> I’m waiting for the calls to initiate market rate pricing on these spots.

I think the market rate there is still zero; you can always find somewhere to lock up in the area. If you had to pay to use the corral it would be empty most of the time, then New York’s first bicycle corral would be a flop. The boost that businesses on the street can expect to get from having easy, well-known, and free bicycle parking would be lost.

But Midtown is a different story. After these corrals are established and successful in no-brainer locations like this, I think a priced bicycle parking experiment in Midtown would be really cool. If proper bicycle lanes are ever brought to the area, it will be the only way to manage demand. A few free corrals would be quickly filled by a mix of professional delivery services, residents using it for storage, and visitors who could never count on finding an available spot. When I ride to midtown, this is always a problem.

So pricing them would be an interesting experiment. Getting the payment system right would be tricky—the charge should be commensurate to what autos pay for the space they require, so it will be very little per hour. People don’t like dealing with coins, and credit cards don’t make sense for such small amounts. But times are changing in the payments business (Square, etc.) so that problem may go away before the city gets around to needing a solution for it. And restaurants could lease a few spots for their exclusive use at a high monthly rate, if they want.

Bike share is another way of backing into pricing. You are not just paying for the bicycle, but the convenient parking for it. Pretty quickly you are going to have some people using it only for that reason, wondering why they can’t pay less and use their own bicycle.

@google-b2011943ccb2736d1d5fe3c2de896553:disqus , it’s permanent, and it’s not going anywhere. It’s not a “trial.”  The bikelash is over.  We’re winning.

“The “bikelash,” better known as those who want all traffic to
move efficiently in order to reduce  fuel usage and air pollution, is
not over.”

The “bikelash” is better known as those who feel more important than everyone else and think all space on the street should belong to them and them alone so they can try to get where they are going as quickly as possible.  The average driver cares nothing about air pollution, and the only concern with reducing fuel usage is to reduce the impact on ones wallet.  You are probably right about one thing though, this awful sense of entitlement and superiority is not over.  

“If there was less of this type of attitude, and more traffic law obeying
by bicyclists, the rest of us would be much happier with changes such
as this.”  If you really believe this, I have a bridge to sell you.