Wednesday, April 18, 2012

[Updated] DOT installing CityRacks in front of MUD on East Ninth Street

EV Grieve reader MP sends along these photos from this morning... DOT workers are currently installing one of those sidewalk bicycle parking racks in front of MUD Coffee on East Ninth Street between First Avenue and Second Avenue...



MP mentions that this might be one of the first that the DOT has installed in the city... and that the MUD folks have been advocating for this...

Here's info about CityRacks via the DOT website:

CityRacks are free sidewalk bicycle parking racks, placed throughout New York City by DOT. They to encourage cycling for commuting, short trips and errands. CityRacks accommodate all types of bicycles and locks. CityRacks are not intended to be used for long-term parking.


Also, the rack will be attached on the street taking a parking space in front of the store. Perhaps a better placement for it given how busy MUD can get on a weekend...

Updated:
New photo via @bomarrblog ...

13 comments:

Hey19 said...

Cue driver/anti-biker outrage in 3-2-1

Matt said...

Nice. More of this, please, DOT. Increasingly, the few bike racks out there are full up. We need more. We do not need to be giving away free street parking to car drivers

EV Grieve said...

@Hey19

How am I supposed to find a place to park now when I drive to MUD?

OR

I was walking on East 9th Street and this cyclist going the wrong way almost ran me down while attempting to park his bike...

Sam Timberg said...

How about instead of expecting outrage we encourage this great idea. One loss of a parking space is easily offset by 8 bikes locked to these non intrusive bike racks. Sure bikers may still bike the wrong way, but that's not the problem these racks are trying to solve. I hope we see more of these around soon.

Matt said...

Reminds me that my favorite part of the whole Bike Lane Backlash bullshitstravaganza was the faux-populist crap about how bike riders were all elitist hipster-riches and car drivers are jus' folks Real New Yorkers. As if the price of maintaining a car in Manhattan didn't automatically make it primarily a rich people and bridge-n'-tunnel thing. And yes, then there was the hilarious bleating by a few small business owners who figured that those nine cyclists would somehow spend less than that one car driver....

Anonymous said...

Poor use of space. They could easily fit two rows.

Hey19 said...

@Grieve -
Thanks for stepping up. I thought I was going to have to do it myself.

No this is great, I was just trolling before. I welcome more of this, now if we can just get delivery guys to stop bullying people off "their" bike racks.

Trolling is ok if you admit it, right?

eskixtrm said...

Matt, when you say "we" don't need to be giving away free parking to car drivers, who is the "we" you are referring to? Also, free parking is being taken from car parkers, not given.

Crazy Eddie said...

There will be a sign, ‘Fixed gear bikes only’. Sorry

Matt said...

eskixtrm -- We, the people? We, the taxpayers? Who pay for the streets? And yeah, free on-street parking isn't something that exists in nature. It's the result of decades of horribly misdirected planning that encourages more cars to take to our clogged streets and sully our lungs and bully our cyclists and pedestrians. It's high time to rein in the four door dinosaurs

Big Brother said...

@Crazy Eddie - Unless they were handcrafted by real artists in Brooklyn from organic, all natural materials I'd never chain my fixie there!

Anonymous said...

Very good news! More bicyclists, less cars, please.
- East Villager

Anonymous said...

Agreed about the free on-street car parking. I have never understood why that should be free. Owning a car is a luxury, not a right. Why should the parking be free?

Street-parked cars are an eyesore and take up too much street space. Space is so expensive in New York, so why is parking space subsidized? It should either be paid parking or repurposed for the common good: widening the sidewalks, for example.

(Of course, I supposed one might make a similar case that bike parking shouldn't be free, either....)

- East Villager