The other day, an exchange about one of BikePortland’s favorite topics (the many benefits of charging money for car parking) took a turn when a reader who goes by “meh” asked if we all wanted to pay to park in bike corrals, too.
That inspired another reader, Kirk, to spin out a vision for paid on-street bike parking that almost won me over.
I would gladly pay into a system (but of course only from 8am-7pm) that provides bike corrals along most every block face (not just every few blocks or so, it’s gotta be convenient) in the city where there is overwhelming bike parking demand in the commercial areas, residential areas, industrial areas, any of those – once we start charging for car parking in all of the areas that currently experience overwhelming car parking demand as well.
Advertisement
Since each corral fits about 12 bikes in a space that one car would normally take up, I would of course expect the hourly rate between 8am-7pm to be somewhere around 13 cents an hour to equate to the $1.60/hour rate for a single space of car parking. Combined with the fact that city policy wants more bikes parked in town than cars, the hourly rate would naturally need to incentivize bike parking over car parking, so let’s just assume the hourly rate in these high demand bike parking areas should be reduced to about 10 cents an hour to make payment simple and more incentivized.
Let me know when the time comes that I can count on stumbling across this type of parking luxury for my bike, and I’ll get my dimes ready.
Those dimes would be the dealbreaker for me, though, so I’ll be holding out for Google Wallet.
Thanks for reading.
BikePortland has served this community with independent community journalism since 2005. We rely on subscriptions from readers like you to survive. Your financial support is vital in keeping this valuable resource alive and well.
Please subscribe today to strengthen and expand our work.
Okay, 10 cents per hour to park a bike.
How would this work?
Would you walk to a meter, insert credit card or wave smartphone or deposit coin, get a parking sticker, go stick it on your bike locked at the rack? Or would you reach to the adjacent bike, take off its sticker, and place it on your saddle?
How would non payment be punished? Would a parking enforcement officer check all bikes at the rack for unexpired parking stickers? When he finds a violator, does he tag the anonymous bike with a citation addressed “to whom it may concern”? Or does he lock the bike up with a city lock, removable upon paying the illegal parking fine?
How much money would this scheme raise? I guess it depends if the bike parking fees are required for every bike rack in the city, or just for select corrals. If the latter, won’t those select corrals be largely empty? If the former, do we really want a future Portland in which you have to pay money every time you leave your bike – and, no doubt, every time you step on the sidewalk?
The bulk of commenters on this blog scream foul at paying 40 cents/day in Street Fee (per household) so will they really tolerate paying 50, 60, 100 cents/day in bike parking fees (per person)?
I think paid bike parking is a bad idea. The concept of bikes paying their way is one thing, the practicalities are another.
Keep it simple. Business, do you want customers to have bike parking convenient to your establishment? Great, install a corral, the city will permit it. No interest? Okay, no biking customers.
(Paid bike valet services e.g. at the OHSU tram, are a different thing.)
“The bulk of commenters on this blog scream foul at paying 40 cents/day in Street Fee (per household) so will they really tolerate paying 50, 60, 100 cents/day in bike parking fees (per person)? ”
Apples and oranges in my opinion.
the $0.40/day in Street Fee is precisely *not* for any service; it is a flat rate with which to further subsidize the already heavily subsidized car-bound. $0.10/hr for bike parking is, by contrast, a roughly market-based rate with which to compare the spatial burden our respective vehicles represent to/in the public right of way.
I like Beth’s comment below immensely, but also think Kirk was onto something. The fools who keep crowing about the need to pay our way better watch what they wish for.
Exactly! It’d be extremely difficult to make a plan like that pencil out without any government agency losing money. If you can come up with a way to make this idea work, then you’ve got yourself a million dollar idea on your hands.
My main goal of posting that comment was to provide a simple comparison of how absurdly low-priced/not-priced our car parking situation currently is in relation to its demand, how city policy wants increasing numbers of bikes parked in town with fewer cars parked in town, and we’ve got only a handful of bike corrals compared to the # of block faces that are entirely dedicated to the storage of private automobiles.
Don’t read too far into the seriousness of the comment, it was simply meant to get people to think critically about our current parking imbalance, and boy did that work well! 🙂 … I love how many wonky comments can evolve from the one comment, and how some of those comments provide actual examples of parking innovations within the industry for bikes/cars/scooters/motorcycles! Great job BikePortland for providing this type of forum.
“…My main goal of posting that comment was to provide a simple comparison of how absurdly low-priced/not-priced our car parking situation currently is in relation to its demand, …” Kirk
You say, “…a simple comparison of how absurdly low-priced/not-priced our car parking situation currently is in relation to its demand, …”.
Got that, now tell us the amount you think parking should be priced at.
I read Kirk’s comment to the earlier story, earlier in the week, but could not regard what he had to offer as a serious suggestion.
More than not, the comment seemed simply to be a variation of a rather common retort used to rebuff complaints that ‘bikes don’t pay their own way, etc, etc,’. No examples in the city were suggested, where there is or may be overwhelming bike parking demand that would call for the installation of “…bike corrals along most every block face (not just every few blocks or so, it’s gotta be convenient)…”.
If Kirk or anyone else has a serious suggestion about where in the city, bike parking based somewhat on the plan he suggests, may be called for, I’d be interested in reading about it. Lets have a short list of some examples, and take a look at whether this could be a constructive aid to the use of bikes for transportation in the city, that could in theory help to meet present and future anticipated transportation needs.
I’ve thought about this topic often, and the most support I can garner for it is for paid bike storage lockers. $0.10 an hour does seem low, so let’s bump it up to $1 per hour but charge the same for on-street car parking. So you can fit between 8 and 10 bike lockers in the same space as a car fits, so charge between $8 and $10 an hour. I feel more secure leaving my bike in a locker than fumbling around with two locks or taking off my front tire every time I want to go into a store or restaurant.
The downside would be the relative eyesore of the bike lockers compared to, say, a bike corral, but since it’s replacing a car the visual aesthetics come out about even.
$8-$10/hr for car parking on the block. Lower demand locations, cut the cost as appropriate; $0.50/hr bike parking, $4-$5/hr car parking.
Where I’ve seen them, which is away from the street at the curb, I like the box shaped stand alone bike lockers, but they don’t seem like very efficient parking. They don’t seem as though they’d be very practical for use in providing street parking. Subjective I suppose, but many people would consider motor vehicles to be far more aesthetically pleasing, and they, unlike bike lockers when bikes aren’t parked in them, go away when they’re not parked.
What’s so bad about walking a few blocks? To me, a much bigger issue is the fact that every time we park downtown, we roll the dice on our bikes getting stolen. am I crazy to want a place downtown where I can pay 2 or 3 dollars to safely leave my bike for the day?
The chances of your bike getting stolen are probably no different than having your car broken into, if you take proper precautions. FWIW, I have been parking in downtown Portland for at least 10 years now with my bike, and have never had anything stolen on it, except for my bike lights a few times. Even when I leave things in my buckets, I have never had anything stolen from them either. And I have parked overnight at PSU many, many times!
Get yourself a good lock and don’t ride a racing bike, and you should be fine. And ditch the quick-releases, they are made for bike thieves to detach your components!
We don’t all ride racing bikes, but we don’t all ride WalMart bikes either. Theft *is* a problem down there whether it’s happened to you or not.
if somebody breaks into your car you can still drive it home… if somebody steals your bike, or even your seat or wheel, then you can’t use it to get home…
But you can take it on Trimet, even if the seat or wheel was stolen. The only thing my wife had stolen downtown, parking every day at PSU for work, was a leather saddle on a day when she did not bring her plastic cover. That was no fun, but easy to replace.
Bike lockers are awesome, and could be used to attract shoppers. I’m waiting to see which Portland business figures this out first.
I may be alone in this sentiment, but all this talk about bicyclists “paying their way” misses, for me anyway, a very important ideal: Bicycle riders arouse the ire of so many car drivers precisely BECAUSE they represent a real, tangible sense of freedom that those who drive automobiles do not enjoy.
My bike doesn’t pollute nearly as much as a car does, nor does it damage the roads. I don’t pay a tax for owning a bicycle, or carry insurance for riding one, or pay a fee to park it downtown (often out of sightline which increases the possibility of theft; and yet, there is no law on the books concerning Grand Theft Bicycle. Just sayin’).
And that is part of the point.
Yes, it’s true that bicycle safety is poorly enforced in Portland and other car-centric US cities. The tradeoff for me is the ability to live a little more under the radar than autmobile owners, and I don’t think that’s a secret anymore. People who live car-free really ARE free in some very real ways that car owners cannot be.
You resent my freedom that much? Then I invite you to figure out a way to rely on your car less, figure out a way to live more simply and to eschew some of the trappings of the fake middle class paradigm we’ve been sold for seven generations. If you insist that I pay some phony fair share without enjoying the protections of law enforcement and the benefits of more truly human-scaled planning, then you don’t get to grouse about my freedom, and you ought to kindly leave me and my bicycle alone.
Now THIS is the comment of the week – IMO
“…Bicycle riders arouse the ire of so many car drivers precisely BECAUSE they represent a real, tangible sense of freedom that those who drive automobiles do not enjoy. …” Beth
What you’re describing isn’t freedom, as much as its the convenience of being able to avoid expenses that are part of the main means of transportation, motor vehicles, most people are obliged to rely on for transportation.
Motor vehicles continue to be the overwhelmingly major means of transportation the entire city and the metro area for example, rely on, and that serves as a key building block of this areas’ economy. In contrast, the aid to support of the economy bikes used for transportation represent, is miniscule.
The rationale that money spent on building and maintaining roads, are a subsidy to people relying on motor vehicles for transportation is smoke and mirrors. If like commenter of the week, Kirk, you want bike parking facilities that better support use of bikes for transportation, fine, lets instead hear your suggestion for fairly providing that, rather than going off on people that have to rely on motor vehicles for transportation.
“What you’re describing isn’t freedom, as much as its the convenience of being able to avoid expenses that are part of the main means of transportation, motor vehicles, most people are obliged to rely on for transportation.”
I’m not seeing the difference there, wsbob.
I think Beth is right on the money. We bikey folk manage to get where we need to go free of all the exasperating, stuffy, expensive, metal boxes the car-bound find themselves cooped up in.
“The rationale that money spent on building and maintaining roads, are a subsidy to people relying on motor vehicles for transportation is smoke and mirrors.”
How is that?
You surely appreciate that the quality and scale of the roads we are talking about here are necessitated by the kind of vehicle (cars and trucks) now common. Roads that were built before the automobile, and that we will one day again build, are much simpler and easier to construct and maintain.* Since some of us opt out of this auto-circus to the extent we can, and there are alternatives to driving that countless others could avail themselves of, I think it is fair to say that money spent on building and maintaining roads–as practiced–is indeed a subsidy to those who habitually drive, and this kind of spending is *not* helping us move beyond the automobile in a strategic fashion.
* not here counting the extra effort required to build roads without ready access to cheap fossil fuels.
Beth says she thinks people are mad at people that bike, because of something to do with what she describes as freedom in the form of taxes, insurance and parking that people through their use of bikes for transportation, have been fortunate to avoid.
I don’t think what she describes, really is freedom. Specifically in the case of street parking for bikes, which is what this bikeportland story is about, not having to pay for parking, is just avoiding having to help pay for expenses involved in keeping the city going.
And we need to tax those freeloading pedestrians, too…
“not having to pay for parking, is just avoiding having to help pay for expenses involved in keeping the city going.”
so you’re saying that bicycles don’t pay their way?
“…so you’re saying that bicycles don’t pay their way?” Spiffy
No, I’m not saying “…bicycles don’t pay their way…”. I’m not saying they are paying their way either, but I do think it’s worth looking at whether paid street parking could be, to use Michael’s word: “…awsome…”.
People using bikes for transportation aren’t generally required to park them on the street. Paid parking for bikes is what featured comment poster Kirk’s comment was about. Beth’s thoughts that people driving are angry with people biking has something to do with freedom, don’t make much sense to me. Doing even simple numbers, neither does Kirk’s suggestion.
Last paragraph of my comment this link leads to: http://bikeportland.org/2014/07/26/comment-week-paying-street-bike-parking-awesome-109356#comment-5240975
If somebody feels they can put together a list of city locations where paid bike street parking could help the city meet future transportation needs, post it here for us to read.
Providence Park
OHSU Tram
PSU
NW 23rd
ohsu currently pays employees to ride their bikes to work. and this incentive is often a major motivator.
Though I agree with you on some points, I seriously doubt the anger comes from the freedom sour grapes theory you present.
I think most the frustration comes from two main factors. The first is that people are ignorant on the laws of the road. We assume the speed limit is the minimum pace they are entitled to travel. We often don’t don’t know where bikes belong on the roads. We don’t know the basic passing laws, hand signals, etc…
It’s easy to get frustrated when you think you know and understand something, but your wrong. Coupled with the fact that many people can’t be wrong, and you get anger.
The second and the one talked about the least, is that riding a bike also threatens many peoples lively hoods. The economic reach the automobile and oil industries is nearly omnipresent. People that work for the press (automobiles are one of the largest advertising categories), dealerships, shipping docks, construction crews, gas stations, repair shops, restaurants, manufacturers, retail, banks, tech companies and many other industries are directly and significantly affected by the use,manufacture and sale of automobiles. Large swaths of the population need cars for more than just transportation to work.
In my dealings with people on these issues the whole “pay your own way” argument is a red herring. It’s just a convenient elevator pitch/bumper sticker which needs little explanation, but makes ones views known.
“The second and the one talked about the least, is that riding a bike also threatens many peoples lively hoods.”
Small disagreement. Riding a bike *for transportation* is I think still widely believed to be a peripheral thing, something statistically so insignificant as to be still very far from a threat. Climate change, on the other hand, does threaten all of our livelihoods, and I suspect this–as poorly as it still understood by many–is a more plausible source of resentment when someone encounters another person on a bike, and pigeonholes them as having solved this in some way for themselves while leaving those still in cars stuck in the soon-to-be-obsolete patterns.
the ranting about prii and prius drivers is eerily similar to the ranting about bikes.
I’ve had similar thoughts when “discussing” various articles on (shhhh, don’t tell) OregonLive. So many people resent paying for car insurance, paying for auto registration, paying gas tax, giving up “their” roads for bike lanes, etc., etc., etc., etc., (the list of baloney reasons for resentment is long), yet they never stop to think that they, them-very-selves could enjoy all the same benefits of ditching their car and using something as simple as a bicycle for making even a few trips.
Why not? Because while out of one side of their mouths they complain about how “easy” those cyclists have it (city caters to “them”, we spend “our” gas tax money for infrastructure for “them”, laws don’t apply to “them”, “freeloaders”, etc., etc., etc., etc., etc….), out of the other side of their mouths they exclaim about how “crazy” cyclists are, that anyone who rides must have a “death wish” because riding is so dangerous, there’s no way they would ever show up for work all sweaty, or ride in the rain, or wear that ridiculous spandex, or get “helmet hair”, or be associated with the “Portland Cycling Community”, etc., etc., etc., etc….
I have to ask: “Which is it?” Methinks most folks want to have their cake, eat it, then have more cake—as long as they don’t have to work or be inconvenienced for it.
The chances of your bike getting stolen are probably no different than having your car broken into, if you take proper precautions. FWIW, I have been parking in downtown Portland for at least 10 years now with my bike, and have never had anything stolen on it, except for my bike lights a few times. Even when I leave things in my buckets, I have never had anything stolen from them either. And I have parked overnight at PSU many, many times!
Get yourself a good lock and don’t ride a racing bike, and you should be fine. And ditch the quick-releases, they are made for bike thieves to detach your components!
Racing bikes are fast and efficient, and quick releases allow me to change a flat without caring a crescent wrench. Surely you don’t think people should drive crappy cars to prevent theft too…
if somebody breaks into your car you can still drive it home… if somebody steals your bike, or even your seat or wheel, then you can’t use it to get home…
Sounds like you are almost talking about the bike kink system which seems to be pretty active in the S.F Bay area region mostly. Typical fees are 5 cents per hour for the time you initially rent the space for with higher rates if you are delayed in getting back to your bike. Max duration for parking your bike seems to be from 3 to 7 days. The Bike Link system also does rental bikes in some locations. You use a bike link card that has a value on it, like a gift card, to start your parking or bike rental. If your card doesn’t have enough value on it when you return to get your bike you can get your bike back but your card is zeroed out and you can’t use it again till you add more value to your card. https://www.bikelink.org/help/how_it_works
Hey, thanks for this link – I’d use this quite frequently at Santa Clara Caltrain and SJC, and wish I’d have known for jury duty on Hedding a few weeks ago. I don’t think many people here in the south bay actually know about this (I’ve asked around).
I suggest that the Goodman parking empire dedicate a couple car parking spots to bike parking. They should be located right next to where the guy collects the money. My bike wouldn’t (shouldn’t) be missing parts or the bike itself, for that matter. I would love to ride downtown for events but parking my bike on a sign pole or some such place isn’t very appealing. I would be willing to pay $1 an hour to insure my %500 bike is there when I return. I think the Goodmans would make more from all the bikes than 1 car, just saying.
I believe the City Center Parking garage at SW 5th and Salmon has bike parking. I don’t know how much it costs or how secure it is, or whether other CCP locations have it.
Several of garages downtown have free bike racks near the lot attendant. I’ve used the one by Whole Foods on 13th and Couch many times. It is worth walking a few blocks if I have a long meeting in the evening. The garage is open late, but you do need to know where to go to get inside after a certain hour – like 9:00 or something.
Because a number of studies show people using bicycles save society money, bicycle parking should be provided for free.
Japan has already figured it all out.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pcZSU40RBrg
Nice loli shirt…
I’ve seen these things before and I think they’re wonderful, but like the Seattle automated toilets, I think they would fall victim to vandalism and other forms of abuse from the less desirable residents of the city.
Perhaps there could be a few pilot installations of bike lockers to test the concept. I wouldn’t want them on the sidewalk, as they take up too much room, but maybe place a pod of 8-10 lockers on the street in a former car parking space.
How would the payment and enforcement work? Suppose you pay for an hour but leave your bike there for longer? Should the locker refuse to open, impounding your bike until you pay the full sum? Or should it automatically open up at the end of the paid hour, making your bike available to anyone?
Here in Boston there are several former car spots converted for scooter/motorcycle. 1 car spot = 4 moto spots – striped, each with a meter.
Cars in Boston pay the pittance of $1.25 per hour to park. I was delighted to see that motorcycles get a full hour for just $0.25, or less than 1/4 the cost of a car.
Indeed I’d pay a dime an hour to park if it was part of a comprehensive, “SFPark” like broad based parking pricing reform.
You don’t pay by the inch, you pay per vehicle. You could easily fit 2 smart cars into one parking spot but they would both have to pay full fare though. Charging less isn’t making any money for the city.
Is there a sign on the bike corrals down town that says parking is free for bikes? I have only noticed signs saying that this block is so much per hour…
Seems like all the comments here assume that Kirk is positing a straight-faced suggestion that we start charging for bike parking.
My read is that Kirk’s post is tounge-in-cheek — artfully rendered satire on a low-car future that we’d be damn lucky to see, and that most of us will probably be giddy about should it ever come about — pointing up the silly imbalance of resources and loyalty still lavished on car parking as some kind of civil right.
If the future conditions that Kirk laid out ever come to pass in this city…
…should that future become real, I’ll be salivating in anticipation of the innovations for frame-integraed dime storage at the Oregon Manifest Design Challenge>/b>.
“…pointing up the silly imbalance of resources and loyalty still lavished on car parking as some kind of civil right. …” Craig Harlow
Nothing silly about supporting with provision of street parking, the mode of transportation used by approximately 85 of road users. Motor vehicle transportation is a major component of the operational economy, while bikes are are minor in that respect.
Silly, would be providing bike corrals on the street in locations where there would likely be little, or no use of them. Encouraging and supporting bike use in Oregon is nothing new. The state, Portland and other cities in the state have been doing just that for at least 40 years or so.
In earlier comments, I’ve suggested people assemble a short list of locations in the city where paid bike street parking would support the city’s transportation objectives. Silly sniping to the effect that motor vehicle use is subsidized, is just ridiculous, and ignores the reality of how essential motor vehicle use is to the economy.
Let’s see people using bikes for transportation start to provide a demonstration that this mode of transportation truly does comprise a major portion of the city’s overall transportation system. So demonstrated, more street bike parking would almost certainly be provided accordingly.
What’s silly is clinging (as a society and individuals) dogmatically to free auto parking in a space-limited urban environment, when all of the forecasting/planning intelligence makes plain that the balance must and will shift from cars to other modes. Blinders on humans are silly.
“Silly sniping to the effect that motor vehicle use is subsidized, is just ridiculous, and ignores the reality of how essential motor vehicle use is to the economy.”
Sure, from our vantage point today car use is absolutely central to everything most of us do. But your dismissal of talk of subsidies seems to overlook how this came to be so. How it is that all other alternative ways of getting around have been marginalized by the almighty automobile. Subsidies abound and have played a huge part in creating the conditions we live with today. Take away the subsidies, and see how long automobiles reign supreme.
“…But your dismissal of talk of subsidies…” 9watts
To the contrary, I acknowledge the weak argument some people attempt to make, that people’s use of motor vehicles is “…subsidized…”, but do, specifically find this argument to be ridiculous in the context of street parking used primarily by people to park their motor vehicles.
Note the last paragraph of my comment you’ve responded to. Therein is the answer to questions about how paid street parking for bikes on every block face might be brought about.
Craig, street parking is not “…free…”. Sorry if the amount charged at the meter for it doesn’t fit your and some others here, dreamed of hope to leverage more provision for street parking for bikes. If the bikes aren’t being ridden for transportation in sufficient numbers to justify it, there’s no need to provide parking for it, paid or otherwise.
If you’re lacking for ideas for where paid street parking on every block face might be considered for a trial run, maybe consider two or three blocks of the commercial centers here in Portland, of Alberta, Mississippi, Hawthorne or Belmont streets.
“and ignores the reality of how essential motor vehicle use is to the economy”
no one is criticizing freight. low occupancy fossil-fuel powered vehicles are destructive and non-essential.
“…low occupancy fossil-fuel powered vehicles are destructive and non-essential.” spare_wheel
By “…low occupancy fossil-fuel powered vehicles…”, maybe you’re referring to single occupancy motor vehicles. People reading can’t know for certain if you don’t say clearly.
What percent of street parking provided for motor vehicles is used by people driving with themselves being the only occupant, may be more difficult to determine than the percent of such vehicles on the road.
What’s your evidence that motor vehicle user fees pay all the costs incurred by their use? All the evidence I’ve seen says that they don’t.