How Bike Corrals Expand New Yorkers’ Access to Businesses

A quick note about the new bike corral on Franklin Avenue in Crown Heights, which got a vote of approval from the local community board after hundreds of signatures were gathered in support of it. The Prospect Heights Patch reports that two local residents see the on-street bike parking as a symbol of gentrification and have started a petition to get rid of it. If you take a look at the numbers for car ownership and bike ownership, though, it seems pretty clear that more people are going to get some use out of this space as a bike corral than as car parking space, whether you’re talking about long-time residents or newer ones.

According to the 2000 Census, the car ownership rate in this City Council district is just 33 percent [PDF], far below the citywide rate of about 46 percent. While the neighborhood may be different today than it was in 2000, these car ownership rates haven’t changed much. (Nearby Assembly districts saw car ownership increase between 2 and 3 percentage points in the 2005-2009 Census numbers.)

Meanwhile, the citywide household bike ownership rate is 54 percent, according to a recent New York Times poll. It’s probably safe to assume that bike ownership is higher in this part of the city, given the low car ownership rate, but let’s say it’s the same as the citywide rate.

That would mean 54 percent of the households in the neighborhood now have access to eight parking spaces by the curb here, while before, about a third of households had access to one parking space. On top of that, everyone now has sidewalks that are a little less cluttered.