Photo of the bike-accessible workplace at 6 West 48th Street: Transportation Alternatives [PDF]

On Monday afternoon the City Council's transportation committee will take up the Bikes in Buildings Bill, which addresses a major obstacle to bike commuting. The legislation would give people who work in commercial buildings the right to bring their bikes inside the workplace, if they have the consent of their employer. Transportation Alternatives director Paul White calls it "one of the easiest ways to enable much greener travel in New York City." The bill's prospects look promising: Bloomberg reports that it enjoys the active support of the mayor, and most of the City Council is expected to sign on.

The public can testify at Monday's hearing, scheduled to begin at 1:00 p.m. in the main council chamber at City Hall.

Opposition stems from the Real Estate Board of New York, which is expected to testify against the bill. "I'm sorry but bringing a bike into a narrow or crowded lobby is not necessarily a safe thing," REBNY President Steve Spinola told Streetsblog soon after the hearing was first scheduled. "If somebody brings a bike in and hits somebody, whether it's a woman -- a pregnant woman -- or a man, or whatever, and hurts them, well number one, not only will possibly that bicyclist be sued, but I can guarantee you that they're going to be suing the building owner, arguing that they left an unsafe situation."

Empirical evidence of the supposed hazards posed by bicycles is in short supply. "REBNY has been raising the liability issue for months now," said White. "The fact is they haven't marshaled a single example of a building that has sustained damage or incurred liability or otherwise experienced problems with allowing bicycles inside." T.A. has been compiling a dossier of buildings that let bikes inside, and White says they've found that "it's completely doable, completely easy, and actually is a valuable amenity to tenants."

White sees a parallel to other red herrings dangled about when transportation reforms first surface. "It's the same kind of argument that we heard in the nineties about traffic calming," he said, "that if you built curb extensions or put in speed humps or other kinds of devices that people would be injured by them and they would sue. And it was proved to be completely unfounded."

REBNY also maintains that sufficient progress can be made through voluntary measures and a zoning amendment that would apply to new construction. "We've asked our members to try to figure out ways of encouraging accessibility for people who want to bring their bikes, but we don't think that the city should be mandating it for existing buildings," said Spinola. "We believe that for new construction, there is a reasonable requirement that could be made, and in speaking to my building owners, they understand that, and we've been talking to City Planning about doing that."

The zoning amendment, however, will leave the vast majority of office buildings unaffected. White believes that voluntary compliance will likewise leave huge gaps. "I think if you take all the commercial buildings you'd have something of a bell curve," he told us. "On one end of the curve you'd have the buildings that are doing something already, really taking the lead, being proactive about enabling bike access. On the other end of the curve, you have buildings that are very resistant to it, for whatever reason. And in the middle you have buildings that really don't feel strongly either way, but the only way that they would really enable access would be if they were compelled through this kind of legislation."

The gathering threat.

The bill also includes language requiring bike parking in new buildings, mirroring a zoning amendment unveiled by the Department of City Planning earlier this week.

Yassky spokesman Jake Maguire stressed that the bill is about access. "It's a no-brainer that if you want people to stop driving and relieve crowding on subways, you need to allow people to bring their bikes to work," he said. "Hopefully this bill will have a speedy hearing and a speedy debate in the Council. With the support of 30 members we expect it to pass before the end of the year."

To review: The bill provides for bike access to existing buildings (which will constitute the vast majority of commuting destinations long into the future), and bike parking in new buildings. A few weeks ago transportation analyst Charles Komanoff gave us a quick-and-dirty estimate that bike commuting could rise up to 50 percent as a result of universal access to workplace buildings.

Crain's Insider has reported that the Real Estate Board of New York opposes the Bikes in Buildings Bill. REBNY President Steve Spinola sent a letter to Streetsblog Wednesday outlining his organization's stance, and confirmed his opposition to the new bill in a phone interview this morning. He questioned the city's legal authority to mandate bike access and cited concerns about liability, arguing that access should be expanded voluntarily by building managers. More on that exchange later.

Photo: kate at yr own risk/Flickr

In a letter to his members [PDF], REBNY President Steven Spinola gets behind indoor bike parking in principle, but opposes the creation of a legal mandate:

Dear REBNY members,

Mayor Bloomberg's PlaNYC has a focus on making New York City more bicycle-friendly. I encourage REBNY members to assist in that effort by voluntarily providing a means for bicycle storage in their buildings. Bicycle parking has been identified as a major obstacle for many commuters to make the switch to biking to work. By providing safe bicycle parking and storage, you will make it easier for your tenants to bike to work and contribute to the goals of a cleaner, greener city.

We have strongly urged the City not to consider legislation requiring office buildings to provide bicycle parking and will continue to do so. But we do need to meet the needs of our tenants and to contribute to the City’s efforts to make it easier for bike riders to ride to work. So I hope you will survey your buildings and find a means to accommodate bicycles within them where possible.

There are a couple of interesting things going on here. One, it's important to note that Intro 38 does not "require office buildings to provide bicycle parking." Many building managers are already in compliance with that bill's open-ended language simply by virtue of allowing tenants to bring bikes inside their offices. Spinola is probably referring instead to stronger language in PlaNYC about the need for indoor bike parking (see the bottom of this page).

Two, Spinola's encouragement of bike parking is a step forward, but will voluntary measures be enough? A few workplaces have gotten past the strange cultural aversion to bike parking. If they remain the exception despite this DOT campaign, a more forceful law than Intro 38 may be in order.