Valet Bike Parking for Downtown, on Business Days?
That’s what the New York Times City Room blog suggests:
Updated, 5:20 p.m. | The city is doing an all-out bicycling push over the next few years, creating 200 miles of new bike lanes and paths and exploring the concept of bike sharing. But a city study found that one of the biggest obstacles to increased bicycle commuting is not safety, but rather the lack of secure bike parking at work — particularly in areas like Midtown Manhattan. Having a safe place to store a bike at work is an urban amenity that ranks somewhere with having unfettered roof access or a key to a community garden.
A possible solution? Bike valet parking.
Bike valet parking is no secret to those of us in San Francisco - we love it. It’s one of the signature services of the SFBC, and I would argue, our city. It shows up, magically, at all of the city’s big events, and many of us have even volunteered to valet bike park — we know it’s a great service, and we know it helps the SFBC. StreetFilms has even done an episode bigging-up valet bike parking at Giants games.
The interesting take from the City Room blog, however, is that it suggests that even little ‘companies’, even one-man companies, can offer valet bicycle parking services. It would reduce the unemployment rate, and have a host of other positive benefits for the City.
BikePortland.org just profiled a local entrepreneur who does valet bike parking for special events.
When I was down in Austin I asked a local biker bulletin board if anyone would be interested in doing ‘the valet bike parking business thing’ with me. I saw that there was a need - there are so many massive music events in Austin, and I and other bikers were constantly locking up to any fixed piece of street furniture we could find. And the ‘biking at SXSW’ movement is about to explode - bikers will need places to park their bikes securely.
Clearly, this idea is ready for some more attention. Downtown bike shelters with secured bike parking take a long time to implement, but a private entity can make something happen very quickly.
Warm Planet Bikes, which does free valet bike parking down at the 4th and King Caltrain station, has long since reached its maximum limit of 130 stored bikes. Similar services don’t exist in other parts of the city, that I know of. How many other people would ride to work if they had a secure place to park, even if it cost them a couple or few bucks a day?
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