The Best Bike Parking in the Country

The Times has an interesting story on a bike parking lot planned for the Penn Station neighborhood. The 34th Street Partnership is looking for corporations to foot the bill, around $200,000 a year.

“We want this to be the premier bike parking facility in the country,” said Partnership President Daniel A. Biederman, presumably meaning something better than what Mount Pleasant erected for its two-tired residents last summer.

The site, on 33rd between 8th and 9th, measures 2,600 feet. It’s slated to hold 100 bikes; the 26-square-feet-per-bike ratio is probably better than most Manhattan residents get.

The city is not officially part of the venture, but reporter Patrick McGeehan says the Department of Transportation has been installing tons of bike racks–800 last year alone.

 

Bloomie’s Bike Lanes

There’s an interesting article in the Times today about Mayor Bloomberg getting serious about making life easier for bikers and encouraging them to bike to work. He’s bullish on building bike lanes–200 more miles by 2010!–and erecting bike racks.

The reporter gamely points out that Bloomie has only built two miles of lanes this year. But to be fair, the guy was tied up building that football stadium on the west side these past few years.

 

Five Things I Like About My Commute

So lengthy was my mini-vacation that I noticed a spider web had sprung from my bike to the lawnmower in our garage. Not having to commute for all of five days, I got a little perspective on the game, and in a mad flash of optimism and good cheer, came up with five whole things I like about my commute.

1. I don’t know a soul on my train. No husband of wife’s friend at the station to pretend I don’t see, no one from work I get stuck riding next to when they board in White Plains, no friend of a former friend I have to pretend I don’t see when they get on in Valhalla.

 2. 1-3/4-Seaters!  

3. Unlike Stamford or White Plains, or even Hartsdale, Hawthorne is a small station. That means, in the rare event that the Missus picks me up after work, she can pull right up to the stairs, grab me, and drive right out, instead of getting jammed up in big-station traffic.

4. The option of having a beer on the train.

5. On that topic, the pubs one sees from the Harlem line, including JC Fogarty’s in Bronxville, Harry’s of Hartsdale and Valhalla Crossing.

6.  The new bike rack at Hawthorne station! 

Geez, that’s 6. I must really be relaxed.

 

Rack ‘n Roll

Got a call from Town Hall yesterday telling me the bike rack was up and functional. “Tell your bike friends they can park there,” the woman told me. (As if my “bike friends” and I sit around in our free time, sipping Power-Ade, wearing Lycra shorts and discussing our rides to the train station, and the heretofore substandard bike-parking situation there.

I thanked her for helping make the world a slightly better place.

I parked my bike there this morning. It was the only bike on the rack, with three others parked in the old spot along the fence. Perhaps they think the rack is an abstract sculpture.

Trainjotting will now cease writing about bike racks–no subtle digs at Town Hall, no clever pun headlines (Nice Rack!). You’ve heard enough.

 

This Bike Rack Thing is Contagious

Surely inspired by the brave actions of Mount Pleasant Town Hall, the NY Times blog City Room reports that the Department of Transportation installed a bike rack at the Bedford Avenue stop in Williamsburg today.

City Room writes: Williamsburg, a haven for hipsters and Hasidim [Editor's Note: The Times, right on top of the social trends] has a new distinction today. The Brooklyn neighborhood is the first where parking spaces have been removed to make way for bike racks. 

City Room says nine racks were installed there in Hipster Heaven, accommodating 30 bikes. It’s part of New York’s City Racks program, which has installed almost 4,000 racks over the past decade.

 

Nice Rack!

The new bike rack is in place! I saw it with my own eyes at Hawthorne station this morning, as two Mount Pleasant workies were jamming it into the ground. It’s black, it’s one of those squiggly-line ones that’s shaped like your lower intestine turned on its side, and it’s beautiful. Hopefully it’s fully functional tomorrow.

Maybe Mount Pleasant can hold an official unveiling of the bike rack tomorrow, with Town Supervisor Robert Meehan joining such Westchester luminaries as Joe Rao from News12 and that Congressman that used to sing for Orleans as they cut the ribbon.

 

Ground-Breaking News From Hawthorne

I’ve seen the future of Hawthorne train station, and it involves a bike rack.

Yes, after my relentless hectoring of the poor folks at Mount Pleasant Town Hall, they’ve not only ordered the rack, but are installing it as we speak! As I waited for the 8:16 this morning, I saw a backhoe, a Mount Pleasant town truck, and no less than three employees ripping a wooden parking barrier out of the ground to make room for the rack, which sat in plastic packaging leaning against the station house.

And Mount Pleasant isn’t burying this thing in the far reaches of the station lot. Not by a longshot–it’s right next to the station house. If you scored this spot with your car, you’d feel good the rest of the week. 

Cheers to Mount Pleasant, and a gigantic boo for me for doubting that this thing would be in place by Labor Day.  

 

Speaking of Hawthorne’s Would-Be Bike Rack…

Honestly, I hate to be a pessimist. I pestered Mount Pleasant Town Hall for a bike rack at Hawthorne Station–indeed, a striking foil to the gigantic SUVs parked in the lot–and after several weeks and “we don’t own the station” declarations, they said it was on order.

All good, right?

I dunno. On Friday, June 15, the town hall clerk told me it would be there in six weeks. But I have this glum feeling the thing’s going to sit in its box in some weed-strewn lot for weeks and weeks, until Town Hall 1. figures out where to put it, and 2. actually puts it.

Six weeks has it arriving in late July. If the thing’s not in place by Labor Day, I’m going to be very unhappy.

 

July 5: Feeling Like a Spent Bottle Rocket

I was debating whether to take the normal train or the later train. Assuming most coworkers unburdened by thigh-high moppets would be dragging their asses in late today, I opted for the 8:43.

I arrived at the station on the bike, cutting it a little close. Alas, the slim section of fence where cyclists lock their bikes–uh, no bike rack…yet–was packed tighter than Joey Chestnut’s belly. A train pulled in; it was heading south, but was on the northbound tracks. I tried to make my bike fit, but couldn’t, and searched around for another spot to lock it and hope it didn’t get towed, or whatever they do to bikes parked illegally.

Slowly, it dawned on me. That train heaving and wheezing not ten feet away…It’s heading toward the city. It’s 8:42.

Anxiety set in. Northbound tracks notwithstanding, that’s my ride, alright. I found a spot for the bike and mounted the stairs two at a time. As I reached the overpass, the train pulled away.

A sliver of hope remained. The train was on the northbound track. I’d never once boarded a city-bound train on that track. An announcement came on the loudspeaker in the overpass:

“The 8:43 train to Manhattan is…garbledgarbledgarbled.”

The 8:43 train is arriving shortly? The 8:43 train is stocked with free Starbucks and crumpets?

“I repeat,” the loudspeaker continued, “the 8:43 is running on the northbound tracks.”

Which meant I had a 34-minute wait for the next train.

One thing did brighten my morning, however: the sight of a young woman snapping a photo of a couple–they all seemed to be Filipino–in front of the Hawthorne sign on the platform. One can envision them thumbing through the photo album years down the road: Here we are at Champs Elysee, here we are at London Bridge, here we are at Hawthorne train station.

Good times.

 

Rack ‘Em Up!

It was a tight squeeze along the narrow stretch of fence where people are allowed to lock their bikes at Hawthorne station, and I’d sort of boxed another bike in. (Back story: we’ve been pestering Mount Pleasant Town Hall for a bike rack, and last week they said they’d ordered it.) As I unlocked my bike yesterday evening, the owner of the bike I’d boxed in (mind you, he could still get his bike out, though I’d broken the unwritten role of having my bike touch another bike) approached.

“Sorry about that,” I said. “It was kind of a tight squeeze.”

He was cheery, as most people in and around Hawthorne (duh, it’s part of Mount Pleasant) seem to be.

“No problem,” he said with a smile.

We unlocked our bikes side by side.

“Ya know,” I said like an expectant father, “we’re getting a bike rack in six weeks.”

“No way!” he exclaimed. Honest, he actually exclaimed. “How’d that happen?”

I told him about pestering Town Hall. He asked for names. I gave ‘em. He smiled broadly all the while.

“Now if we can just get them to build a few freakin’ sidewalks,” he said before we rode off in different directions.