With New York City’s ambitious efforts to make the city more pedestrian and cyclist friendly while limiting the detrimental impacts of the automobile on the busy city streets including the recent pedestrian mall in Times Square, the development of further bike lanes as well as a new phenomena of creating ‘bike rooms’ in many buildings around Manhattan.
Popping up at various locations on Manhattan including 345 Hudson Street, 1330 Avenue of the Americas, 345 Madison Avenue, 520 Eighth Avenue and the most popular of all, the Empire State Building, ‘bike rooms’ are fast becoming a popular place for bike users to park their bikes while heading to work or running errands. Partially in efforts to reach LEED certification as a Green Building by passing strict standards by the US Government, tenants of commercial buildings are increasingly becoming open to providing space for bike storage as cyclist numbers continue to rise in NYC.
Empire State Building's Bike Room
Bike storage is increasingly becoming popular in the real-estate market for Manhattan’s busy cyclist community. With growing ridership, bike rooms and storage have continued to increase as Green Building’s have gained popularity. The United States Green Building Committee awards LEED certification points to buildings for various energy-related changes. One hang up in the awarding of points is that the USGBC requires both showers and changing rooms in these bike rooms which many of the bike rooms do not include. As it is encouraging that Bike Rooms have gained in popularity around New York City, meaning an increase in ridership in cyclist use, there is still an obstacle for landlords to gain important LEED certification points, which could eventually deter landlords from converting commercial spaces into bike storage facilities.
For more information on LEED Certification’s hold on Bike Room development, click here