Bike Parking: A Modest Proposal

stamenBike Parking Solutions

for SFMTA

a modest proposal

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Bike parkingWhatʼs the big deal?

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We see shiny, happy people riding their bikes all over the city these days.Cycling in San Francisco was up 43% between 2006 and 2008, which is fantastic.But that’s without (barely) any improvements since the injunction!We could do so much better.Here are the three primary issues we identified that need to be addressed...

CapacityBikes take up space.

Space is at a premium.

photo by frenchthread on Flickr: http://www.flickr.com/photos/frenchthread/2484632662/

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If you’ve spent any time on Valencia on a Friday night, you know what I’m talking about.Bikes are locked to everything in sight.It’s not the worst thing in the world, but wayward bikes can pose hazards to pedestrians and motorists.The problem is only going to get worse if ridership increases, which we all hope that it does.

SecurityBike theft sucks.

photo by garageowns on Flickr: http://www.flickr.com/photos/garageowns/3855967479/

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If you’ve owned a bike in any city, you’ve most likely experienced some sort of theft.Education can combat bad locking habits, but the city ultimately has to provide secure facilities.We can learn from other cities’ successes (New York CityRacks competition) and failures (Toronto’s “post and ring” scandal).

ConvenienceParking a bike shouldnʼt

be a pain in the ass.

photo by jamesbondsv on Flickr: http://www.flickr.com/photos/jamesbondsv/2642560175/

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Most importantly, parking facilities need to be located as close to the street as possible.People aren’t going to use them if they need to walk their bikes through alleys, carry them up stairs, or put them into elevators.This bike rack outside of a Home Depot in Chicago is a perfect example of what not to do.

Technologyto the rescue...?

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Automated systems

Imagine:Storing bikes underground!Solar-powered “bike trees”!

They could use RFID,swipe cards, and TransLink!

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One Japanese company builds systems that store 9,000 bikes in an underground cylinder, and can retrieve them in 17 seconds.Above-ground systems like bike trees store bikes overhead, and some employ advanced technologies like RFID.

But...Do we really needfancy, expensive infrastructure?

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We gave many of these some consideration in our research, but they all struck us as a bit too, well, mechanical.Oh, and they’re expensive!

Not yet.First, we need

(for back of a better term)critical mass.

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We can do a lot right now,and on the cheap.

In the near term...

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Improvestreet-side

parking.

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Why?• sidewalk space is at a premium• planning code’s regulations stipulate minimum curb set-backs further limiting availability• increasing the visibility of bikes on streets raises awareness, drives adoption thru “incidental advocacy”

photo by jehvicvbc on Flickr: http://www.flickr.com/photos/jehvicvbc/3932012282/

Bike corrals!Automobile space co-opted

for bicycle use.

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Bike corrals are dedicated street parking for cyclists.This one is on Stark Street in Portland.Some European cities have similar facilities, but they tend not to have any racks because most of their bikes have integrated locks and kickstands.San Francisco does have its own...

photo by sfbike on Flickr: http://www.flickr.com/photos/sfbike/3439738445/

SF Main LibraryBollards: yes!

Big, circular racks: yes!More of these, please.

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And it actually improves upon the Portland ones in several important ways:• Bollards provide protection from passing cars, and create a permeable “barrier” around the space.• These circular racks are actually a lot easier to use

ConvenienceStreet-side facilities

providerock star parking.

photo by BikePortland.org on Flickr: http://www.flickr.com/photos/bikeportland/901847434/

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Drivers coined this the term because it’s so rare to score a street parking spot right in front of wherever you’re going.Installing corrals in front of key commercial centers has the potential to drastically improve business for restaurants and merchants.There’s also a social aspect to having everyone lock up in the same place.Dedicated street parking makes cyclists feel special.

Capacity1 car parking space

can fit at least 19 bikes.

Weʼll need more eventually, though.photo by Canadian Veggie on Flickr: http://www.flickr.com/photos/canadianveggie/3411854169/

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Dedicated street parking also solves the capacity issue.Without any fancy elevator or lift systems, a single parking space can fit 19 bikes. We could double that later with stacked racks, like what the Danes have done here.320,000 on-street parking spaces / ~12,000 road segments = 26 spaces/block on both sides.Taking a single car space for bikes more than doubles the bike parking capacity on one side.

photo by animalvegetable on Flickr: http://www.flickr.com/photos/animalvegetable/2178354108/

Gimme shelter.(It rains a lot here

in the winter.)

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We could make the lives of the San Francisco winter cyclist a little nicer by providing some protection from the elements.This one in Brooklyn is kind of lame, but you get the idea.

photo by l_yudia on Flickr: http://www.flickr.com/photos/y_i/470262299/

Let there be light.Because sometimes itʼs really

hard to unlock your bikewhen itʼs dark out.

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Where?Everywhere!

Okay, we have some morespecific suggestions...

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We made maps.

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This is what we do at Stamen.

Street grades(thin: bad;thick: good):

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Here’s the street grid, with line widths inversely proportional to the slope of the street. In other words: Thick lines are easily bikeable; thin ones are not.

The existingbike network:

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This is a map of the existing bike network, with dedicated lanes, or “class 2” facilities, in thick lines. The rest of the network is comprised of sharrows and wide curb lanes.

TEPʼsdesignatedrapid Munilines:

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This is the Transit Effectiveness Project’s designated “rapid” Muni lines, including the Muni Metro LRV system.

Bike network+ accessibleroads +rapid MUNI:

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Here they are overlaid on top of one another using subtractive blending. Black lines are locations where all three systems overlap.

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Judging just from the intersections of these three data sets, one might conclude that Market Street, Potrero, and Bayshore were the best places for parking that caters to cyclists and transit users.

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However, the paltry bike counts along Potrero and, presumably, southward indicate that there may not be enough cyclists there to justify additional infrastructure... yet. We desperately need to bridge the very real gap between these areas of town so that the cycling can become a reality for people in Bayview, Hunter’s Point, Visitacion Valley, and Ocean View and Lakeshore to the west.

?

?

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More data is clearly needed, though, to make logical decisions about the prioritization of new and/or better parking infrastructure.

Hereʼs oursuggestion:

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But ideally, we would just do it everywhere.

Just to recap:Bike corrals.Lots of ʻem.

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Organically grow long-term

parking facilities.

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Why?• Reduce the potential for cyclists being (or even feeling) restricted by distance or topology• Integrated transit systems with cycling connections (particularly bike share) service residents, commuters, and tourists alike.

ConvenienceLarge-scale, long-term parkinghelps people take their bikes onmore “serious” trips: commuting,

shopping, and long-distance travel.

photo by Daniel Sparing on Flickr: http://www.flickr.com/photos/spag85/3432060739/

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SecurityThereʼs safety in numbers.Having a guard helps, too.

photo by JOE M500 on Flickr: http://www.flickr.com/photos/m500/2354262989/

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bike lockers in Beilen, Netherlands courtesy of: http://hembrow.blogspot.com/2008/12/more-cycle-parking-at-beilen-railway.html

Bike lockers!Long-term, secure,

space-efficient storage forbikes and accessories.

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photos courtesy of SFMTA: http://www.sfmta.com/cms/bpark/4039.html

We have 31.In the entire city.

We need lots more.

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But we can grow these organically.As the need for bicycle parking increases, the need for automobile parking will decrease.

Incentivize,or mandate?

We could encourage private garages and residential developments

with tax incentives.

Or we could follow New Yorkʼs lead.photo by Thomas Hawk on Flickr: http://www.flickr.com/photos/thomashawk/152797452/

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Private garages could be encouraged to make additional bike parking available through tax incentives...Or we could just require them to provide a certain number of bike spaces, like New York has.

Beware, though:Tying bike parking to car

parking is not apermanent solution.

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If we think of bike parking as a fixed share of existing car space, we may find ourselves unable to add bike parking without having to add car parking as well.

In the future...Weʼll need to go a bit further.

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The increase in bike ridership is certainly worth celebrating, but we’re just getting started.

Remember: those gains were gotten during the injunction!

Devaluethe bicycle.

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This doesn’t have much to do with parking, but we think it would really help the situation.We need to drastically lower the cost of entry to cycling in the city if we want more people to adopt it as a primary means of transportation.

photo by Roby on Flickr: http://www.flickr.com/photos/roby72/492380473/

Security What if we stopped caring about our bikes so much?

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There’s something really nice about having a crappy bike.It means not worrying about it getting wet or dirty, or having to keep it clean all the time.You can’t go very fast, which tends to result in much safer (and courteous) riding habits.And it means not really caring so much when your bike is stolen.Removing the requirement of bike ownership substantially lowers the cost of entry for “becoming a cyclist”.

CapacityBike sharing means

less space needed for bikes.(And more for people.)

photo by LipglossJunkie on Flickr: http://www.flickr.com/photos/lipglossjunkie/3600567519/

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Bike sharing is one thing...

But there might be amore interesting option:

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photos by matthijs on Flickr: http://www.flickr.com/photos/matthijs/520592405/

Seed the city withbeater bikes!

Put a couple thousand of them on the streets and

see what happens.

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The bicycle may be too cheap, too available, too healthy, too independent and too equitable for its own good. In an age of excess it is minimal and has the subversive potential to make people happy in an economy fueled by consumer discontent.

Jim McGurn, 1994

I thought of that while riding my bicycle.Albert Einstein,

on the Theory of Relativity

Thank you!

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