A bike friendly city has secure bike parking
BikePGH’s advocacy history can be tracked by following how the humble bike rack, came to be so ubiquitous in neighborhoods all over Pittsburgh.
Did you know that when we were proposing the first dozen sidewalk bike racks in 2004 that there were two days of debate in City Council over them?
These racks were sculptural pieces fabricated in a former steel town. Bike Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh Downtown Partnership, and the Sprout Fund collaborate on installing the first Three Rivers “Public Art” Bike Racks around the city. This proved to be a major early victory that helped garner Bike Pittsburgh a great deal of attention.
Institutionalizing bike parking
By 2009, it was clear that the demand for better bike parking was high enough to push for institutional change. During discussions with the City’s Department of City Planning, it was discovered that the City had a section for bike parking buried in the Zoning Code, but the page was blank. So we got to work writing this section based off of best practices.
First, a new bike rack installation ordinance unanimously passed City Council making it easy for businesses to install bike racks in the public right of way. By the end of 2009, the City launched their first bike rack request program for businesses.
In 2010, we took it a step further, looking to use the zoning code to require bike parking in new buildings, just like the code does for automobile parking. Pittsburgh City Council then unanimously passed the Bike Parking Ordinance, an amendment to the Zoning Code that requires all new or “change-in-use” buildings to install secure bike parking, while also reducing the required car parking if they increase the number of bike racks.
By 2012, we not only overcame the debate over bike parking on sidewalks, but we brought it to the street as well when the first on-street bike corral was installed in the South Side. Since, over a dozen on-street corrals have been installed on the street, usually in former car parking spaces.
Thousands of bike racks
Since then we’ve been partnering first with the Department of City Planning, and now the Department of Mobility and Infrastructure to install bike racks citywide. We assist in locating, reaching out to community groups and businesses, fulfilling 311 requests, and helping design the overall plan. Originally conceived to add bike racks to business districts as parking meters were being pulled, the joint program has installed over a thousand bike racks in every nook of the city, including 500 racks between 2021 and 2023 alone.
Bike Racks for businesses
We have also been part of selling bike racks to developers and building owners, not only providing outdoor parking for residents, customers and staff, but helping to design indoor bike rooms for long term bike parking and storage.
See our Bike Rack Services Page for more information or if you would like to purchase bike racks for your property.
And we’ve done so much more…
There is no doubt we’ve left a mark on this City. To see the complete list of things we’ve worked on, see our Wins Page & History Page.
NEWSLETTER