Originally Posted by
geo8rge
The bill is a nuisance. I do not see that property owners should have to spend all day writing access plans, or hiring newly unemployed legal interns to write and respond to that silliness.
They don't have to. All they need to do is allow the tenants to bring bicycles into the building, e.g. give bike commuters access to the freight elevators during its normal operating hours, and fill out a form.
Again, there are countless regulations on commercial buildings - many of which are far more onerous and expensive for building owners than this.
Originally Posted by geo8rge
1) If you cannot afford to lose your bike, you cannot afford to own it. Sorry that is the way of the world.
While I agree with the general principle, and accept that bike theft is a part of Life in the Big City, the reality is that bike theft is very high in NYC; thieves will take just about any bike, no matter how beat up it is; bike theft is disruptive; and even a beater bike can be expensive, especially for low-wage workers.
This is a near-zero-cost way to mitigate that risk.
Originally Posted by geo8rge
2) If people really wanted to bring their bike indoors, they would buy one that was designed for that, a folding bike....
Nice theory, except that as I know from experience, many commercial buildings will refuse to allow even folding bikes into the building. And even a collapsed folding bike can be heavy, bulky and dirty.
Originally Posted by geo8rge
3) Those studies are of people who are not commuting. People who actually commute know that their bikes are fairly safe if they take some common sense precautions, like not buying an expensive bike to begin with.
H'm, if you don't like the conclusion, attack the study, right?
If you're trying to find out why people are not commuting by bike, you have to talk to people who aren't commuting by bike. Which of the two questions make sense:
"You do not commute by bicycle. Why don't you commute by bicycle?"
or
"You commute by bicycle. Why don't you commute by bicycle?"
I might add that if I believed this bill to be onerous, I wouldn't support it.