Let’s talk bike parking

Friday, July 22 — The Lansing City Council is scheduled tohold a public hearing Monday on proposed citywide bicycle parking regulations.

The ordinance, brought forward by 4^th WardCouncilwoman Jessica Yorko, would require property owners to install some formof bike parking but only if major renovations are planned. As it’s drafted,renovations that require site-plan approval by the city’s Planning Departmentwould need to include bike parking.

The quantity and type of bike parking spaces would depend onthe type of property and, if it’s a business, how many employees work there.Businesses in the downtown district would not be required to install bikeparking unless it has off-street parking, in which case the number of bike spaces must equal 5 percent of the number of car-parking spaces.Multi-family residential properties would be required to install two bikeparking spaces for every 10 “dwelling units;” churches would need to installtwo for every 50 seats in the “main unit of worship;” and fitness centers,libraries, museums, banks and shopping centers would have to install two forevery 500 square feet of usable floor area.

Businesses that employ more than 40 people would be requiredto install long-term bike parking, which includes bicycle lockers, bicycleracks in locked cages or bicycle rooms.

Property owners can seek to waive the requirements if theycan prove a “demonstrable financial burden that would substantially impair theproperty owner’s financial ability to construct or structurally alter thestructure” or a “measurable and demonstrable lack of demand” for the spaces.

In other business, the Council is scheduled to vote on aresolution allowing the city to acquire six parcels along the east side ofWaverly Road just south of the Grand River and build a sidewalk. The 2011“Congestion Management Air Quality" Waverly Road Pathway Project would install aroughly half-mile “non-motorized path” — or a sidewalk — between Cooley Driveand Starlight Lane. The roughly half-mile stretch is between Moores River Driveand Holmes Road.

Not to be confused with the so-called “Sidewalk to Nowhere”(read more here),this project is, however, “part of a series of four connected projects in anintergovernmental effort to make non-motorized travel more accessible to thesouthwest section of Lansing.”