City Council Action on Bike Parking

[Spencer John Schumacher]

Good Morning All, 

I just wanted to flag some great news coming out of today's City Council meeting that will certainly be of interest to the greater Austin bicyclist community. 

The BAC has been asking the City Council to update the City's bike parking requirements for quite some time. Our last formal recommendation on the topic was all the way back in 2018. 

The current code is extremely confusing, but it basically boils down to: 

• Commercial Uses: A minimum of 2 spaces;
• Multi-Family Residential Uses:  A minimum of 5 spaces or 5% of the required motor vehicle parking, whichever is greater;
• Single-Family or Two-Family Residential Uses: None;
• All Other Uses: A minimum of one bicycle parking space;

 As you may be aware, the City Council just voted today to eliminate motor vehicle parking requirements, which would then make the bike parking requirements even more confusing. As such, I was able to include on the Urban Transportation Commission recommendation regarding parking minimums that we update bike parking based on the 2039 Austin Strategic Mobility Plan mode-split goals (which plans for only 50% of people commuting alone by car, 16% commuting via transit, 5% commuting via bike, etc). 

Essentially, If we expect 50% of people to be driving alone and 5% of people to be biking then it should follow that the ratio of motor vehicle parking to bicycle parking should be 50:5, or 10% of the motor vehicle parking. That breaks out to the following: 

• Commercial Uses: A minimum of 2 spaces or 10% of the planned motor vehicle spaces, whichever is greater;
• Multi-Family Residential Uses:  A minimum of 5 spaces or 10% of the planned motor vehicle spaces, whichever is greater;
• Single-Family or Two-Family Residential Uses: None;
• All Other Uses: A minimum of one bicycle parking space or 10% of the planned motor vehicle spaces, whichever is greater

When this plan was presented to the City Council Mobility Committee it found an audience with Mayor Pro Tem Paige Ellis and Council Member Zo Qadri. Together they directed they issued a motion (passed 8-2) with the following direction (also attached):

• Council directs the City Manager to initiate code amendments to modify minimum bicycle parking requirements to be consistent with the Austin Strategic Mobility Plan (ASMP) mode split goals, per the Urban Transportation Commission (UTC) Recommendation 20231003-004. These code changes should move through the standard Boards & Commissions review and Council approval processes to ensure sufficient public input. 

• Council encourages the City Manager to finish processing updates to the Transportation Criteria Manual as quickly as possible to ensure that the newly required minimum bicycle parking meets modern standards for fixture type, placement, etc. 

• Council further directs the City Manager to explore ideas for incentivizing the installation of bike parking at existing developments to bring them up to the same level of service as will be required under the above code amendments and the updated TCM.

This is all great news for Austin Bicyclists and will also mean a lot of work for the BAC in the new year. My understanding is these code amendments could be ready as early as January 2024. Please let me know if you have any questions or concerns about this, but otherwise LET"S GET TO WORK!

All the best, 

 

--

Spencer Schumacher

He/Him

Executive Director of the Innovation and Technology Caucus of the Texas Legislature 

spe...@itcaucus.com

Chair of the City of Austin Bicycle Advisory Council

spencers...@utexas.edu

Commissioner for District 9 of the City of Austin Urban Transportation Commission 

bc-spencer...@austintexas.gov

Member of the City of Austin Downtown Commission 

bc-spencer...@austintexas.gov