BIKEPGH MESSAGE BOARD ARCHIVE

So what specific issues should we bring up at the meeting? What was the conclusion of the MOVEPGH study?

MOVEPGH has barely kicked off. We anticipate MOVEPGH won't have any plan in place for two years. The talking points are: meters serve as bike racks. If they are removed in favor of pay stations then 1. racks need to be put in and/or 2. two or three meter poles should be kept in place, capped, and have a rack attachment added on in order to preserve this bike parking.

We will be making a formal recommendation to the City this week, which will include a half dozen bike parking corrals as well.

You mentioned this in your letter, but how about new/different infrastructure in the next 50 years? Five decades is a long time to keep street parking spaces if alternatives to cars (transit, bikes, something else?) become more popular. Is there any discussion for adding a clause in the lease for something like that?

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I missed this thread when I started another one earlier today on the same subject.

Some issues to consider (and perhaps comment on):

Parking facilities in downtown should serve all users......including safe, secure parking for cyclists

Parking meters may be removed in some business districts and replaced with parking pay stations. Does the removal of the physical meters also remove convenient bike parking options? Will those "spaces" be replaced with real bike racks, or will cyclists have to resort to locking up to sign posts, trees and private street furniture.

I am sure there are other issues......I think the crux of the matter is that as the City considers its options, someone is thinking about the impact on cyclists. I'd hate to see unintended, but potentially very negative, consequences result just because everyone was so focused on cars and rates.

Here are the recommendations I sent the Mayor's office yesterday:

Bike Pittsburgh (BikePGH) researched the leasing of parking assets in Chicago as well as the conversion of parking meters to pay stations in other benchmark cities. In all of the cases that we studied, we learned how these decisions affected bicycle infrastructure. Our recommendations, based on best practices and mistakes made in cities in similar situations, are below. The goal of this document is to inform the City of Pittsburgh about these best practices, and to recommend that they be included in any final contract with the selected concessionaire.

When meters are updated to the newer pay stations

The most common problem that we observed in cities such as Philadelphia, New York, Chicago, and San Francisco is that when the older meters are updated to the newer pay stations, there is a loss of secure bicycle parking. Since meters also serve as bicycle racks where no bike racks are available or where racks are full, the removal of meters also removes a significant amount of the existing secure bike parking. In some cases, cities would only remove the meter heads, leaving still-attached bicycles vulnerable to theft.

Recommendation: We recommend that there be a provision in the contract with the concessionaire that requires that 30 percent (NYC converts every third or fourth meter depending on demand) of removed meters be converted into bike racks. This may be as simple as leaving the existing meter pole, and affixing a circular “hitch,” (common practice) or ideally, replacing the meter pole with a bike rack per the City of Pittsburgh’s approved bike rack design guidelines. BikePGH recommends using an inverted-U rack as it is the most cost-effective, uniform rack available.

Subsequently, if free parking is converted to paid parking, BikePGH recommends bike racks be added to these areas so that one bike can park for every three or four cars.

It is also imperative that the same mistake that the City of Philadelphia made is not repeated. Philadelphia removed meter heads while bikes were still attached to the poles leaving the bikes vulnerable to theft. BikePGH recommends that 1) a warning is affixed to the meters well in advance warning cyclists of parking head removal and 2) the meters are converted to bike racks or replaced by bike racks at the same time that the heads are removed.

Bicycle Parking Corrals

As cycling gains in popularity, many cities are figuring out ways to increase the amount of secure bike parking in a limited amount of space. One recent trend is to install “bike corrals” or an on-street space dedicated to bicycle parking. Corrals typically have 6 to 12 bicycle racks in a row and can park 10 to 20 bicycles. This uses space otherwise occupied by one to two cars. As the City of Portland’s bicycle transportation website states, the benefits are multi-fold:

• Businesses: Corrals provide a 10 to 1 customer to parking space ratio and advertise “bike-friendliness.” They also improve the outdoor café seating environment by removing locked bicycles from the sidewalk.

• Pedestrians: Corrals clear the sidewalks and serve as de facto curb extensions.

• People on bicycles: Corrals increase the visibility of bicycling.

• Motor vehicle drivers: Corrals improve visibility at intersections by eliminating the opportunity for larger vehicles to park at street corners.

Recommendation: An agreement is worked out ahead of time with the concessionaire that no fewer than six (6) bike parking corrals be made available in high demand parking areas, or business districts. The actual locations can be determined at a later date. However, it would serve the bicycling community to have flexibility in determining the most useful placement of these corrals.

Eliminate off-peak only parking where possible

In select corridors throughout the City of Pittsburgh, there are stretches of parking designated as off-peak only with the intention of freeing up more capacity for motor vehicles during rush hour. These corridors make designing on-street bicycle infrastructure very difficult due to the fluctuation in the number of lanes available at any given time, and therefore eliminating the possibility of designating where bicyclists are supposed to ride during different times. However, some of these corridors do not seem to warrant the need for more capacity during rush hour e.g. East Carson Street near the SouthSide Works, Penn Ave from 16th St to 11th, and Liberty Ave near the Bloomfield Bridge to name three.

Recommendation: 1. In corridors where traffic volumes do not warrant extra capacity for motor vehicles at peak hours on-street parking is needed, these off-peak areas should be transformed into permanent parking (peak and off-peak). 2. In corridors where traffic volumes do warrant extra capacity for motor vehicles, parking should either be completely eliminated or parking should continue to be off-peak only if made necessary by excess parking demand.

[Duplicated from the other thread.]

Any recommendations on who to contact in the city for those of us who are not city residents? I made my views known to Port Authority loudly and clearly in favor of vastly expanded bike parking.

I'm thinking Amsterdam and Copenhagen.

But who/how at the city?

Here's the latest on the lease. New option on the table. Discuss:

New plan: Authority buys lots, meters from city

Controller: Proposal would moderate parking rate hikes

Read more: http://post-gazette.com/pg/10273/1091459-53.stm#ixzz110yxxsJZ

A thought: Have someone associated with Bike-PGH appointed to the Parking Authority. Among everyone of the proposals for providing money for the city pension fund, the Parking Authority is to remain in existence.

Long term goal should be to have some affiliation with the Authority's Board. Who's to say that the scope of the Authority is limited to motor vehicles? In fifty years when the proposed lease has ended, will their scope have changed?

Somewhat OT, but I strongly second the broadening of the Parking Authority representation. At present, the focus is 100 percent on automobiles. In addition to managing many of the City's parking facilities, the Parking Authority is reponsible for at least some element of parking enforcement, including ticketing of illegally parked vehicles. Next time you see a car parked on a sidewalk think Parking Authority, not necessarily Pgh Police. My other rant against the Parking Authority (and the City) is that they have no provisions for motorcycle parking. Multiple motorcycles can fit in a single on street parking space. In Pittsburgh, if there are two bikes parked in a space, they can both LEGALLY be ticketed, even if the meter fee has been paid, because it is not readily evident WHICH bike paid for the meter. One is obviously a freeloader, and if you can't prove the legal one, apparently both can (and often are) ticketed. Similarly, there is no MC specific rate for parking in a parking authority facility, or MC specific spaces. That should change....

So, broader interests on the part of Parking Authority membership would be greatly appreciated.

"they can both LEGALLY be ticketed"

My god, that's insane.

what sloaps said.

Not just motor vehicles park, bikes part too.

At least they're considering a plan that doesn't include giving up future revenues to carpetbaggers. But how would the infrastructure building go? Raising rates is necessary, but the infrastructure should be improved (for bikes AND cars).

I don't like the use of loaded words like "privateer" and "carpetbagger" in this discussion as it limits discussion of the merits and disadvantages of each plan.

Personally, I'm suspicious of "authorities", since as far as I can tell they have no effective oversight. Private companies can be sued, you can boycott them and hurt their bottom line, and if they don't provide a service that the public wants, they go under. If they're publicly held, you can take shareholder action, and their financial records are readily available. But these constructs such as the Turnpike Authority, the Port Authority, and the Parking Authority, seem to exist to provide well-padded jobs for the politically well-connected, while pretending that they aren't "public employees". I don't really trust them any more than I would trust a private equity firm, and I don't know why I would want to give them even more power. (oh, and I'm suspicious of their private police forces).

I'm not sure how this might relate to possible difficulties with future "bike corrals" (I loved that part in the Bikestravaganza thing last night, those definitely need to be in our future), I believe that the metered rate should apply to one 8' x 20' space, regardless of how many vehicles you stuff into it, as long as someone puts in some coin, 12 bikes, 6 motorcycles, 3 smart cars, 90% of an SUV, whatever. Ticketing 2 motorcycles in a paid parking space is just wrong.

because boycotting is effective against a corporation with holdings around the world, especially when boycotting involves getting people to stop parking downtown - THAT will work.

because suing is effective against a corporation with more highly paid lawyers than exist in Pittsburgh right now. That's certainly a cost effective way to get them to follow the law - if they don't simply pay enough lobbyists to change it to suit them.

because private companies aren't capable (and haven't accomplished in the past) of creating a product and creating a market for said product using fear or sex (aka well funded and crafted advertising) [bottled water], and pushing politicians to favor creating and feeding of said market via the efforts of an army of lobbyists [privatized prisons]

yep, because that's so frigging awesome compared to some local corrupt fat cats. At least those fat cats live and work somewhere close to the area, and not in Connecticuit or London or wherever. I'd rather feed local corruption than out of state corruption, if those are my choices. Since the current owners didn't manage to raise rates appropriately in times past, then we do seem to be stuck with those two options unless we do away with the pension fund all together.

I'm trying to avoid sarcasm here (yeah, me, right?) and engage in a constructive discussion, as much as possible. So I'm not going to go point-by-point down your list of begged questions, since I think they are rooted in fundamentally different views of the world. But I do there might be a simple misunderstanding here: "Since the current owners didn't manage to raise rates appropriately in times past, then we do seem to be stuck..."

We're not facing this problem because parking wasn't expensive enough. We're facing this problem because the city has made promises to its employees that it can't keep. Parking is just the tool that the current administration wants to use to remediate that error. I'm sure that other viable options for funding the pension program would be considered. Doing away with it entirely is probably not a viable option. Unfortunately, the city doesn't have a whole lot left to sell. Too bad we can't sell a sports stadium

Let's make it clear that the ultimate responsibility for this lies with those who (a) were willing to make commitments they couldn't pay for or (b) were unwilling to pay for commitments they had made or (c) extorted commitments from an unwilling public via threats, or (d) ?

And those people would be...

public (ex)employees, local (ex)politicians, and the local voters who like(d) them.

Ginning up rage against out-of-towners is just letting the locals off the hook for having made this bed.

I'm not letting locals off the hook by any means. But their houses are handy to egg, so to speak. I'm not necessary isolationist (ok, maybe I am a little, at least economically), but I'd rather the devil I can see and touch and point to than the devil who never set foot inside city limits.

I agree with your assessment of responsibility, and where the problem came from, 100%.

I'm not enraged about out of towners (yet, they're not here in this aspect at least). I'm enraged that we seem to insource our problems and then outsource our solutions. It's our bed, we need to lie in it or get up and fix it ourselves. That's the only way we'll stop the shenanigans and start getting some of this right.

Because if there's enough resources and potential inside the city to make external sources come in and offer solutions, then there's enough resources inside the city to fix things ourselves - we need to realize that potential for our own benefit.

meh - too philosophical. Bike parking should be a part of the solution, regardless of where the solution comes from.

I asked District 5 Councilman Doug Shields for his position on this; it seems I am preaching to the choir.

I strongly oppose Mayor Ravenstahl's plan to sell parking lots and surface spaces to an outside firm. Selling these resources is a desperate attempt to push costs off into the future for a quick payoff now. It will cost the residents of the city dearly for decades to come. More importantly, it will decimate the urban center by reducing the likelihood people will want to come into town to work or shop.

On a related note, I haven't heard anything about a bicycle parking plan in the lower level of these garages.

His response:

Dear Friend,

Thank you for taking time to share your thoughts about this crucial matter.

The Mayor’s proposal to lease the city’s parking assets is a radical and irresponsible plan. While it may provide short-term benefits, city taxpayers will clearly suffer in the long run. I have consistently voiced my opposition to this plan and will continue to do so.

City Council is considering alternative plans that will help protect taxpayers and keep our neighborhood business districts viable. Our consultant, Finance Scholars Group, provided us with a comprehensive and astute analysis. I encourage you to familiarize yourself with their report which can be viewed at www.city.pittsburgh.pa.us on City Council’s Home Page. The Finance Scholars Group also prepared an excellent PowerPoint presentation which summarizes the report’s findings. It can be found at: http://www.city.pittsburgh.pa.us/council/assets/parkingassets/Pittsburgh_Presentation_Deck.pdf

You may also want to call and/or write to the Mayor, other Council members, and your state senator and representative to voice your concerns.

Again, thank you for contacting our office.

Sincerely,

Douglas A. Shields

@lyle But I do there might be a simple misunderstanding here: "Since the current owners didn't manage to raise rates appropriately in times past, then we do seem to be stuck..."

When you talk of current owners not managing to raise rates appropriately, are you are really talking about a largely Republican state legisture forbidding the city of Pittsburgh to raise parking rates unless the parking authority was privatized?

That is what happened.

To me, that smacks of "We don't want suburbanite money to go to the city - no matter how much those suburbanites use city facilities."

However, ejwme has a point - it might be a bunch of legislators in the pack pocket of corporations.

"Conservative" should mean something other than "more welfare for the rich," but it often does not.

Mick - I consider that "foreign influence" of just a different flavor. I promise I'm not 100% an isolationist... We can't grow coco beans here, and I quite like chocolate. And salt, there's no local source of salt.

But parking? We can't handle that ourselves? WOW.