Creating Indoor Bicycle Parking

Secure indoor parking at the Natural Resources Defense Council headquarters in Manhattan. Photo: Peter Noble

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Beyond simple admittance, building owners and employers can take a number of steps that will enable tenants and workers to park their bikes at work while also helping resolve concerns over bicycle traffic in hallways and elevators.

One method is to create a bike parking area or room on the ground floor or in the basement. J.P. Morgan and Co. has made space for 20 bikes in a ground-floor storage room at its financial district building. Morgan even provides showers and lockers in a nearby basement corner. Cycling employees use a side door to avoid the morning crunch at the front entrance, and present IDs to proceed to the bike area, which is accessible around the clock. Similarly, the Natural Resources Defense Council, with the assistance of Transportation Alternatives, has created an indoor bicycle-parking area for its national headquarters building on West 20th Street. The 10th floor parking area, which uses hooks to hang up to a dozen bikes vertically, is accessible via the freight elevator during business hours and by the passenger elevator at other times.

Large companies may also make provisions for bicycle parking in garages with which they have car-parking arrangements. The advertising firm Saatchi & Saatchi, which employs 1,300 workers at its Hudson Street offices in SoHo, has installed bike racks adjacent to 24-hour security booths on each level of its garage. Bike commuters can shower and change at the firm's fitness center. Sterling-Winthrop, the pharmaceutical company, maintains parking for over a dozen bikes in the sub-cellar of its Park Avenue offices. Directly adjacent to the classy “ribbon” racks are separate male/female showers and lockers. As at most other corporate facilities for bike riders, the cycle commuters enter the building through the freight elevator.