For those who commute to work/class by bike (or want to start!), this group serves as a common space in which to discuss related issues, share news and concerns, and have a united presence in CUNY. Also on Twitter and Facebook.
Hi everyone! I just stumbled onto this group. I see that it hasn’t been active for a while, but if there’s interest in reviving it, I’d love to participate (or if you all just moved to another platform, please let me know where!)
Last year I got in touch with a number of fellow bike commuters at Hostos, and several of us would like to improve our college’s secure bike parking situation for staff/faculty (right now=one rack at the back of a parking lot), create secure bike parking for students, and, more ambitiously, encourage the development of a more bike-positive culture.
For the spring, I’m wondering if Covid will increase some people’s interest in bike commuting as a way to avoid the trains, but of course so far it has also meant many fewer people on campus, so our one rack is no longer overflowing. So we don’t have evidence of existing demand in order to advocate for a better set-up right now.
I’m wondering what bike commuting/parking/attitude have looked like at other colleges since the last time this group was active, and what you all might be anticipating on your campuses for the spring?
Hi Haruko. City Tech usually had full racks (we have two a CITI bike station on Jay St.) but since commuting to campus two days a week, I usually only see 1 and at most 2 other bikes locked up.
I imagine that we’ll have more full racks and that the CITI bike station will be used quite a bit in the spring. However, I also feel that it’s hard to say definitively since Jay St. is a very dangerous street (it’s one of the most if not the dangerous streets in Brooklyn) with lots of traffic and police squad cars parking in the bike lanes.
?I would love if the Feds changed the rules concerning commuting and included bike share as a form of commuter benefits, because I really do not desire another bicycle stolen in midtown.
Hi Junior, thanks for your reply! We also just got a CITI bike station nearby.
I also have mixed feelings about encouraging students (and others) to bike to campus–because on one hand of course I am pro-biking, but on the other hand Grand Concourse is terrible, so depending on where someone’s coming from, the route could be quite dangerous.
On the third hand, it does seem like recent years of bike advocacy have shown that the only way to have any leverage in pushing for infrastructural change is to show that a lot of people are biking.
Stephen – that is a good point! I did not even know until I read your comment and then googled around that Congress was considering this bill (HR 384) that would reinstate a bike commute benefit as a pre-tax deduction, now applicable to bike sharing and usable in combination with the public transit benefit, which apparently the earlier version of the benefit disallowed.
No action on the bill since last January, but it would be great if it passed.
