New York, NY –
The New York City Council is expected to pass a bill today, requiring commercial building owners to allow tenants to bring in bicycles. WNYC's Andrea Bernstein has more.
REPORTER: The bill, which will take effect in three months, removes a major obstacle to bike commuting: the lack of bike parking in Manhattan. Employees may still have to request bike access, but now the law backs them up, in most cases.
In a measure of how power a constituency bikers have become, the measure was almost derailed last month in a tussle between Council members John Liu and David Yassky, both of whom running for City Comptroller.
Yassky was the lead sponsor of the bill, but it had to go through Liu's committee, and some bike advocates feared a series of last-minute changes by Liu would doom the bill. Liu said he was acting to get the best bill.
The unanimous passage of the bill in committee yesterday was hailed in two press release, the first by Yassky and other councilmembers, the second by Councilmember Liu. For WNYC, I'm Andrea Bernstein.
Award–winning journalist Andrea Bernstein is the Director of the public radio Transportation Nation project, a partnership with WNYC, The Takeaway, Marketplace, WAMU (Washington, DC), WMFE (Orlando), KUHF (Houston), YPR (Montana and Wyoming), and KALW (San Francisco). She is also a regular guest–host on the Brian Lehrer show.
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