Tomorrow is National Bike to Work Day, and to help encourage New Yorkers to pedal to their jobs, Transportation Alternatives is co-hosting nine pit stops across the five boroughs to support bike commuters with breakfast, commuter kits, civic-cycling guides and friendly advice about two-wheeled commuting. (See a list of all the locations below.) Health Commissioner Thomas Farley will be biking from Park Slope to Times Square for a press conference with other officials in Times Square tomorrow morning—which is a big step for him, because last year he said he didn't feel safe riding in Manhattan. But yesterday he proved that he's pretty much ready to tall bike joust at the next Bike Kill.
"You have to constantly be alert. You have to concentrate on a bike just like you have to do when you are driving a car," Farley warned while riding into Manhattan. "Most people don't have time to exercise. But people have to get around and biking is an ideal form of transportation." To that end, DOT Commissioner Janette Sadik-Khan joined other politicians this morning to trumpet the success of the Bicycle Access Law, which requires owners and managers of commercial buildings with suitable freight elevators to allow employees to enter the building with their bicycles.
In the past five months since the bill was passed, building management companies have submitted more than 175 bicycle access plans to the Department of Transportation. "If you provide the access, they will bike," said Sadik-Khan in a statement. "By helping provide, safe, secure bike parking, this landmark legislation is already making biking as much a part of New York’s daily commute as grabbing a newspaper or a cup of coffee." To clarify, the law doesn't require building owners or managers to create bicycle storage; employees may keep their bicycles in their offices with approval from their respective employers. More information on Bicycle Access to Buildings can be found here.
Below, the locations of tomorrow's Bike to Work Day pit stops:
Times Square with SELF Magazine and Times Square Alliance
Broadway and 42nd Street, Manhattan, 8:30 am
Poe Cottage with Bronx Borough President Ruben Diaz, Jr.
7 am - 9:30 am
Grand Concourse and Kingsbridge Road, Bronx
Brooklyn Borough Hall with Brooklyn Borough President Marty Markowitz
8 am - 8:30 am
209 Joralemon Street, Brooklyn
Queensboro Bridge with Queens Borough President Helen M. Marshall
Queens Plaza North between Crescent Street and 24th Street, Long Island City
Staten Island Ferry Terminal with Staten Island Borough President James Molinaro
Staten Island Ferry Terminal, St. George
Hudson River Greenway with Martha Stewart’s Whole Living Magazine (Details)
5 am - 10 am
West Side Highway at 26th Street, Manhattan
Riverside Park with the Upper West Side Street Renaissance Campaign
Riverside Park South at 68th Street, Manhattan
Manhattan Bridge Pit Stop
Entrance to the bridge bicycle path at Canal Street and Forsyth Street, Manhattan
Williamsburg Bridge with Times Up!
Mid-bridge on the Williamsburg Bridge’s south pedestrian and bicycle path
Brooklyn Bridge Pit Stop
Mid-bridge on the Brooklyn Bridge’s bicycle and pedestrian path