^{Photo by Steve Allen – The Environmental Blog}

Some people may baulk at the thought of giving up car parking spaces for bike parking, but that’s exactly what some businesses and city’s are implementing. From New York City to Philadelphia to Portland. The great thing about promoting bicycle use among other things are reduced auto congestion and increased health benefits. However, the downside to increased bike usage is the lack of proper bike parking in downtown cities. A lack of bike parking can lead bicyclists to seemingly park their bikes anywhere, like on the parking sign shown above or on trees and such.

In New York, they’ve gone a step further to add bike parking by retrofitting old parking meters into bike parking. It saves cities the trouble of digging the poles out of the foundation, and gives bikers a much-needed place to lock up. According to Transportation Alternatives, there’s only one bike rack for every 31 cyclists in New York City.

Formerly a parking meter, now a bike rack on Columbus Avenue (photo by Kate Hinds) - transportationnation.org

The ongoing discussion among Portland officials is where to put in more bike parking. An obvious idea is to remove some car parking in certain areas of the city where bike traffic is high. However, it seems that Portland is hesitant to pursue this option in a big and useful way. An ambitious plan to increase Portlander’s commuting by bike to 25% from the current 7%-9% will require the city to accommodate more and more bike parking facilities at the expense of some auto parking spaces.

According to bicyclinginfo.org the following is a breakdown of costs for bike vs car parking:

Cost to purchase and install bike racks: $150 to $300 each (parks two bikes)
Cost to purchase and install bike lockers: $1000 to $4000 each (parks two bikes)
Cost to provide car parking space: $2200 surface lot, $12,500 garage
Number of bike spaces in one car space: 10–12

Do you feel there is a need to increase bike parking in your city? Car parking? It always seems to me that there is never enough parking either way. I suppose the idea is to strike the right balance depending on historical use vs projected use of transportation modes.