Today the Democratic members of the New York State Assembly will take mass transit to Lower Manhattan and discuss how, in lieu of congestion pricing and without sacrificing the future through additional borrowing, they will fully fund the ongoing operating and capital needs of the transportation system (including the 2010 to 2014 MTA Capital Plan) and how, without unfairness or favoritism and with limited economic damage, they will ration those driving to congested parts of New York City to the level of traffic the road network can support. Or they will drive there, using their permits to park in restricted free on-street parking areas, and they will grandstand, be publicly disingenuous, continue to promise something for nothing and the expense of the future, and privately discuss deals to reward their supporters. In honor of Silver, Brodsky, Brennan et. al, or in fear of the future they will leave us with, I have decided to forego our transit system (with its uncertain future) and bicycle to work. Or at least part of the way to work, because I was unable to identify anyplace to safely park my bike in the vicinity of my office in deepest, darkest, priciest Midtown. The only place I found bicycles locked was to small trees, not a good idea. So I’ll ride six miles from Windsor Terrace to the Lower East Side, and take the subway from there.
Riding a bicycle to work is a $250 gamble, given that is what it cost me and the high odds of it being stolen. We’ve already had one locked bike heisted from the bike rack at the main branch of the Brooklyn Public Library, where we don’t ride anymore. Generally, my wife and I only use it to ride around Prospect Park, where we don’t have to get off, and only during the times of day when we are confident no one will knock us off to take it.
That isn’t the only risk. A friend used to ride to work every day until he was twice injured by being hit by a motor vehicle. The first time could be dismissed as a one off, the second time couldn’t. He drives to Downtown Brooklyn now. And he’s a former rugby player, and much tougher than I am.
I’ll also have to see how sweaty I am when I arrive at work, and how that affects the rest of my day. Moreover, it is possible that when I arrive at the place to park the bike I will be unable to do so, as all the spaces may be taken. This bike parking location is free, and like all things free that are not rationed in some more coercive way, it is used wastefully and eventually becomes less useful (like street space in Manhattan). When I checked it out last week during the early hour I travel to work, I found that people are using it to lock their bikes long-term, freeing up room in their apartment, and thus almost all the spaces were taken. Almost, but not all. All in all I’m not sure this will work, but I’m willing to give it a try.
My biking dilemmas remind me of a scheme I came up with 15 years ago, at the beginning of my parenting period. I quickly realized that the means I had previously used to avoid my chubby genetic destiny, running for 20 minutes five days per week, would no longer fly, because I would no longer have that much time alone outside of work hours. The only way to maintain my health, I figured, was to increase the amount of exercise I got traveling to and from work, then five miles away in Lower Manhattan.
So I came up with a business plan for a “health club” that would really be a place to have a closet to store one’s jacket and tie (we wore them back then), store one’s bicycle if there was one, jog or bicycle to work, shower, change into business clothes, change out of business clothes, and jog or bicycle home. The idea was to solve two problems at once — the lack of time to exercise, and the lack of closet space in small New York City apartments. A breakfast counter and dry cleaning service would be sidelines, and a small weight room would be provided for those with the time and inclination to exercise their upper bodies as well. The service would priced to be competitive with travel by subway, which might no longer be necessary, and with health clubs.
Downtown now serves, essentially, as overflow space for Midtown, becoming scarce and expensive at the economic peak but cheap and semi-abandoned in recessions. When I came up with this idea it was the depressed early 1990s, and Downtown was so cheap that some were concerned that office buildings might go in-rem (be turned over to the government because they aren’t even worth the property taxes assessed on them). So it appeared to be a good time to take the risk of being liable for a lease with a new business with uncertain prospects. I circulated the idea to a few friends to see what they thought of it. One pointed out that the amount of hot water required for “rush hour” showers would be a problem, but a surmountable one. I actually considered circulating the concept to entrepreneurial types and, if one was willing to try it, investing some savings in it.
Then I checked the zoning resolution to find out where Downtown such a facility would be allowed. Unfortunately, health clubs and anything like them are classified as “physical culture of health establishments,” and every one of them requires a special permit. The only finding of the special permit is that the health club is not a house of prostitution — I believe it was created in response to Plato’s Cave or some such place back in the 1970s. When the city tried to use the zoning resolution to close it, claiming it was not a use listed there, the house of prostitution claimed to be a health club.
Ever since (in order to comply with the law) a prospective health club must rent space (with no assurance of ever being allowed to open), start paying rent, hire lawyers and consultants, go through the environmental review and ULURP process (with community boards screaming “we don’t want those people in our neighborhood!”) and then, eight months to a year later, apply for a building permit (hiring an expeditor so that doesn’t take years) and starting to outfit the space. Perhaps two years after beginning to incur costs, one could possibly start earning revenues. So the commuter health club idea was financially infeasible. With that kind of upfront delay and cost, there was no way to make it pencil at a reasonable cost.
Any possibility of that stupid rule being repealed? After a near decade of pushing that (and similar measures) while at the Department of City Planning, I can safely say no. Any chance of the existing rule being enforced against existing health clubs, who just lie on their building permit applications, open illegally, and then apply for the special permit at leisure once the revenues are coming in? Not if they are large powerful companies, or make campaign contributions to local electeds, hire lobbyists and well connected land use attorneys, and aren’t immigrants or racial minorities opening in predominantly White neighborhoods. But back then since I had been trained as a city planner the thought of setting aside, say, $30,000 for (in essence) graft and ignoring the law never occurred to me. Those who make money in New York, however, don’t bother about zoning. The seven findings for a variance aren’t called the seven lies in the land use law trade for nothing. If everything is illegal, but enforcement is rare, than everything can be a political decision based on who, not what. And that’s what the who’s who seems to like. Better if everyone is at least a little guilty.
The Transportation Alternatives alternative is to simply force new commercial buildings to provide bicycle parking and shower facilities for those working or visiting there, for free. For the indefinite future, however, absent urban renewal clearance on an unimaginable scale, the vast majority of New Yorkers will work, shop, and do business in buildings that already exist. And even if that were not the case, having many small facilities for each building would be incredibly costly compared with one large one for an overall neighborhood , such as the one I proposed. Having every building have its own bicycle parking would only make sense if bicycle commuting were much more common than it is, and property owners will not want to forego revenues for space occupied by bicycle parking until then.
What could be done is to exempt bicycle parking from floor area in new buildings. Currently parking (vehicle unspecified) is exempt from floor area up to 200 square feet per required space, but little parking is required in the CBD, and in fact new public parking facilities are prohibited. The city’s current policy is to use parking restrictions to make it more difficult and expensive for those in the private sector to drive to Manhattan in order to keep traffic down for those with permits to park free on the street. Given that we are not in a real estate recession and space in new Midtown buildings is renting for $100 per square foot, the opportunity cost of storing a bicycle in (including related circulation space) 10 square feet in a new building is $83 per month all by itself. Of course, given that this is New York, additional space designated as bicycle parking and exempted from floor area probably, after a short interlude, be would instead rented out at $83 per month in instead.
Meanwhile, the public organization best able to provide free bicycle parking, at least in certain areas, is New York City Transit. IND stations were built with huge, generally empty mezzanines, which are gradually being taken over by NYCT offices, relay rooms, communication rooms, etc. These generally exceed in size the amount of space required for passenger circulation (unlike BMT and IRT stations which are often jammed), so some space could be set aside for bicycle parking at stations on the Eighth Avenue and Sixth Avenue lines in Midtown, at Hoyt Schemerhorn and Jay Street in Downtown Brooklyn, etc. Of course, the subway would be conveniently located for those only biking in one direction.
In any event, my dreamed up business plan went nowhere, so during the parenting era I put on an additional 50 pounds instead — 40 during the first five years, 10 during the next five years, and none thereafter (as the kids have gotten older and I have once again been able to get some exercise). But perhaps some bike advocates with access to investable cash, a willingness to flout the law (what are we anyway? Canadians? Just say the breakfast counter is the primary use and everything else is accessory) and enough political organization to ward off enforcement might want to give it a try. After all, the onset of business casual and casual Fridays (the best things coming out of the 1990s aside from the internet) make exercise-intensive commuting more feasible. Who knows? If I don’t get killed or ripped off today I might be a future customer.
I’ll report my experience this evening.