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Community Corner

Old Parking Meters Become New Bike Racks

To meet the rise in commuter cycling, the DOT is installing at least 175 new bike racks throughout the city.

To help meet (the numbers are up 289 percent since 2001), the DOT will soon be installing bike racks to 175 former parking meter poles, with 6,000 possible more racks on the way.

In Brooklyn, these racks are located on Seventh Avenue from Garfield to Fifth streets, but there are others located throughout the five boroughs. 

According to DOT (we read the report on Transportation Nation), the original poles are made from durable galvanized ductile iron, and the new meter racks have easily fit on to the former parking meter posts that have had their heads removed following . DOT says that the installation of bike racks on former meter poles will eliminate the cost of removing old posts and installing an entirely new bike rack.

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The new meter rack’s design is based on the standard “hoop” rack, designed by Ian Mahaffy and Maarten De Greeve and selected as the winner of a DOT-sponsored competition in 2008. The design reduces the need for maintenance and helps to prevent theft and vandalism, the agency says. 

DOT says it has so far installed more than 13,000 city bicycle racks throughout the city, making room for more than 26,000 bikes to lockup to. Most of these were within the past four years, when commuter cycling quadrupled.

Find out what's happening in Fort Greene-Clinton Hillwith free, real-time updates from Patch.

Racks can be requested in neighborhoods by visiting nyc.gov/dot , who got 35 new bike racks over the summer after making some noise to the DOT).

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