Brooklyn’s Bike Parking Boom
Photo: Prospect Heights Patch
Crown Heights (or Prospect Heights, depending on your sense of borders) got its first on-street bicycle parking last week, with an eight-spot bike corral installed in front of Little Zelda on Franklin Avenue. Via Patch:
The racks arrived late last week, about two months after Little Zelda owner Michael De Zayas put in an application for one at the suggestion of a DOT staffer who noticed the coffee shop’s lush plantings. As part of the deal, De Zayas agrees to put plantings in corral’s large flower pots and remove litter and snow from the area.
Just two months from application to installation is a very encouraging sign. While Patch says that this is the third bike corral in the borough, as far as I am aware it’s actually the fourth. In addition to this new location, there are now bike corrals at Smith Street and Sackett, in front of Gorilla Coffee at 5th Avenue and Park Place, and on Court and Pacific across from Trader Joe’s. Before August 2011 there were no bike corrals in Brooklyn, and now there are four. While our on-street bike parking inventory is lagging behind cities like Portland, the pace with which more is being added is nothing to shake a stick at.
And more bike corrals are still to come. Kinfolk Studios on North 11th Street in Williamsburg is waiting for their bike parking to be installed, most likely pending Community Board approval. There’s also a proposal for a bike corral in Bushwick at Wyckoff Avenue near Starr Street, though that location’s future is far from certain.
Most business owners are probably not aware that they can apply directly to DOT to have a bike corral installed, so if you know of a business that could benefit from this kind of street treatment let the owners know.
Congratulations to the advocates, DOT staffers, and, of course, the owners of Little Zelda for making this latest bike corral a reality. The next step? Bike corrals on residential streets.
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Brooklyn Spoke 
Franklin Avenue, not Franklin Street. It’s also Crown Heights – only realtors in the last few years have tried to change that boundary.
Fixed. Thanks for pointing it out. There’s a mini debate at Patch about the neighborhood, so even though I know it is Crown Heights I decided to put the parenthetical in.
There is only a debate among those who have a profit motive, or those who have only been around long enough to be informed by a those whose only motivation is profit. Despite the large number of white people with tatoos and facial hair, Franklin Ave between Atlantic and Eastern Parkway is definitely Crown Heights. “Depending on your sense of borders” anything could be anywhere!
With that phrase, facts don’t matter – only feelings and general senses of things matter (which may be completely inaccurate!). It is like the classic “some people think.”
PS. hasn’t there been a bike corral at Bedford and N7th for quite some time?