Comments on: The Curious Economics of Bike Parking

By: David

David — Thu, 01 Jul 2010 18:37:46 +0000

Mr. Chalkley, why would you propose that a parking spot in a private, commercial parking garage be free? It’s absolutely reasonable for the garage owners to be allowed to make money on the spots, just as they do for motorized vehicles.
Bicyclists should be pushing for more public bike lockers, not considering forcing private property owners to make free spaces for bikes.

By: Jason

Jason — Mon, 21 Jun 2010 10:32:35 +0000

I used to work for the Victorian Government (a state of Australia) we had free bike parking for about 100 bikes in the space of perhaps 3 car parking space. the answer is hooks. http://www.bv.com.au/bike-parking/40484/

According to bicycle Victoria’s website there, in a space 20 x 3.9 metres wide you can park 100 bikes. (a corridor 1.5 m wide, two rows of bikes protrude 1.2 metres from walls on each side, bikes at 40 cm spacing) that includes manouevring space. According to this website you’d fit about 4 car spaces with manouevring space in the same area.

By: Michiel

Michiel — Fri, 18 Jun 2010 14:05:53 +0000

a $200 monthly abonnement rate for parking a CAR in an UNDERGROUND parking garage is even expensive!

By: Don

Don — Thu, 17 Jun 2010 19:24:11 +0000

It looks like my estimation is correct.

The law requires 6 x 3 x 3.

A large SUV can be in excess of 15′, so I think that it’s easy to assume a typical parking space would be around 6′ wide by 15′+ long.

So I think they are dividing the lost spaces that they could use for automobiles, and throwing in that $25 “Hell with this law” charge.

By: MikeOnBike

MikeOnBike — Thu, 17 Jun 2010 16:47:56 +0000

6×3x3 sounds like the dimensions of a bike locker. The BikeLink lockers fit two bikes in that space because they have a diagonal wall inside and a door at each end.

By: Lee

Lee — Thu, 17 Jun 2010 14:11:37 +0000

They prob. want to establish a minimum charge per customer. They were likely terrified of the prospect of dealing with hundreds of people switching to bikes so they only pay $30 a month. Parking garages are expensive to build, especially in NYC, and the financing assumes those costs will be repayed. When they calculated the repayment of financing, they prob. didn’t factor in the possiblility of lots of people switching to bikes. So there is a financial incentive to charge people a lot of money no matter what kind of vehicle it is.

I think the fact that the guidelines require a 6′x3′x3′ space for each bike is also a part of the problem. That’s terribly inefficient, especially when you are talking about replacing highly lucrative NYC parking garage spaces.

In the rest of the world it’s not unusual to see on average eighteen bikes parked in the equivalent of one parking space. With folding bikes, the number goes up to 42. Whereas in the US we typically design for more than 8 or 9 bikes per parking space - often far less than that.

The most efficient way to deal with bikes in a valet/security situation would probably be hanging them all on a wall by a hook to the front rim. You can also build rows of hangars.

By: Brian

Brian — Thu, 17 Jun 2010 00:18:09 +0000

Bike Link http://www.bikelink.org/ in the Bay Area provides numerous secure bike parking facilities. As a card holder, you can use any one of them, they are not reserved. My local train station is my most frequent safe parking spot. Cost? 3 cents per hour. Quite a deal.

By: Bikegirl

Bikegirl — Wed, 16 Jun 2010 22:37:47 +0000

That price is ridiculous and definitely set up to fail.

Do what I do: pay a doorman in one of those douchey new residential buildings with a bike room to park your bike for you. You can often avail yourself of this even if you live in a non douche place. Those bike rooms can be really empty. The doormen are generally cool about it. Plus, this kind of sneaky barter is just the NYC way.

By: MadeInKIM

MadeInKIM — Wed, 16 Jun 2010 15:37:24 +0000

Don (comment #11)
That’s assuming just 5 bikes per parking spot. I think one could squeeze in a few more, especially when considering how tight they park cars in such attendant-retrieving garages.
However, I agree w/ your last point, in effect, and similar to Jim-PE (comment #9), use some “leftover space” to park bikes where before there was no utilization (or marginal, say a garbage receptacle) of the space.

By: Jonathan

Jonathan — Wed, 16 Jun 2010 15:33:46 +0000

The price seems reasonable for valet parking, security, and 24-hour access. Accepting and retrieving your bike for you at your convenience, day or night, at street level, convenient to your home or job, and storing it securely, with your accouterments like bags and lights, and that’s not worth $200 a month? The secure alternative is schlepping the bike into the elevator or up the stairs, and storing it in one’s valuable space in the kitchen or next to the bed, and the unsecure alternative is locking it up to street furniture where it can get damaged by vandals or careless motorists.