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Bike Parking: How Much Would You Pay?
By
John Del Signore
Published Dec 18, 2009
Modified Dec 18, 2009
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By
John Del Signore
Published Dec 18, 2009
Modified Dec 18, 2009
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In addition to the Bicycle Access to Buildings Law, which requires commercial building owners to allow tenants to bring bicycles to their offices, another bike law went into effect recently: The Bicycle Access to Garages Law. It requires some commercial garages and parking lots to provide spaces for bikes at a specific ratio relative to their number of car spaces. But prices for the new bike parking have been left up to the market, and Streetsblog notices that at least one garage is taking cyclists for the proverbial ride.
BicyclesOnly, the Flickr user who took this shot, says the daily rate shown here (tax included) is the best deal he's found. Some garages are charging as high as $15 a day! One Streetsblog commenter figures that "maybe 20 bikes will fit in the space taken up by one car, so this garage [in the photo] is charging the equivalent of what would be $100 a day or $1700 a month for car parking." Friggin markets.
And then there's the little matter of the 18 percent tax seen here. BicyclesOnly thinks that's probably a scam, because garages do not appear to be legally authorized to collect taxes "on the rental of parking spaces for human-powered vehicles," just motorized ones. Tax or no tax, we're sticking with u-locks and free street signs—what about you?
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tax
John Del Signore
Originally from the Albany area, John Del Signore has called NYC home since 1995. In addition to his thousands of meticulously-crafted bespoke blog posts for Gothamist, his writing has also been published in The Awl, Deadspin, The Nervous Breakdown, and performed at The Brick Theater in Brooklyn.
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