In LIC, bicycle parking is not for the timid

Like a swimming pool with no water, many areas of Hunters Point now have new bike lanes, but nowhere for bikers to park.

New York has been aggressively expanding bike lanes throughout the city as part of the 1997 NYC Bicycle Master and Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg’s PlaNYC for a Greener Transportation Network. This summer, three-miles of greenway for bikes were added, connecting Whitey Ford  Field in Astoria to the Pulaski Bridge in Hunters Point. However, this did not include the installation of a single bike rack.

Raphael Childress recently rode his red Cannondale road bike from Greenpoint to the Hunters Point Community Plaza Park to play basketball with a friend. The 44-year-old project manager suspects that the amenities in the area are supposed to be only for nearby residents. “This is evidenced by the fact there is nowhere to park,” he said. According to Childress, people who live in Hunters Point can walk to the park or leave their bikes inside their apartments.

When Childress did not find anywhere to lock up his bike, he left it propped against a wall on the basketball court.

Maura McCarthy, the Queens commissioner for the Department of Transportation, said her office takes requests for bicycle rack placements and they “like to put them everywhere.” She added, “We hope to put in lots and lots of them.”

Nechama Levy said, “ I don’t have confidence in the city, vis-a-vis bicycling,”  as she packed a bike into a shipping box inside the Spokesman bicycle shop on Vernon Boulevard in the heart of the Hunters Point commercial area. The 23-year-old with a pierced lip and purple hair called bike parking in the city “atrocious.”

Levy said that when ridership in the area reaches critical mass, the city will respond, but it is  normally 10 years late catching up.

Levy went online to request a bike rack in front of her last apartment in Astoria, but it was never installed. She was also thinking about requesting a bike rack outside her local community garden.

The transportation department recently commissioned artist David Byrne, formerly of the Talking Heads, to design nine custom bike racks. Designs include a coffee cup-shaped rack for the Hungarian Pastry Shop near Columbia University in Manhattan, and a guitar-shaped rack in Williamsburg called “the hipster.” None were designated for Queens.

On a recent Sunday in early September,  the gallery at Deitch Studios on 44th Road held an opening, “Swimming Cities of the Switchback Sea,” for the popular artist Swoon. Attendees came from Brooklyn, Queens and Manhattan and many rode their bikes. Neither the venue nor the city provided adequate places for riders to store their bikes.

The result was chaotic mishmash of more than 100 bikes chained to utility poles, street signs or hoisted into the air and locked to chain link fences.

There have been “no discussions” about adding bike racks outside the gallery, according to a senior Deitch staff member who asked not to be named. “No one has ever brought it up,” she said.

In the meantime, bike riders in Long Island City must fend for themselves to find parking. Outside the Deitch opening, Sarah Quinter, 25, recommended “using your eyes, your ears and your muscles. You may have to lift.”  As she looked for a spot, Quinter furtively attempted to hoist her bike in the air and lock it to a chain link fence. In frustration, she gave up and handed it off to a friend to help.