No bike left behind!

If you ride your bike in New York City, you might think you’ve already dodged the park­ing has­sle asso­ci­ated with dri­ving a car. Unfor­tu­nately, many rid­ers are find­ing that park­ing is an issue regard­less of the vehi­cle. Through­out the city, aban­doned and dam­aged bikes take up valu­able bike racks and park­ing areas.

If you spot an aban­doned bike, you have a few options:

  • Map it! Sev­eral orga­ni­za­tions host inter­ac­tive web­sites and encour­age peo­ple to map aban­doned bike loca­tions for mass reports to the city. Trans­porta­tion Nation and the blog www​.ibikenyc​.com col­lect infor­ma­tion about aban­doned bikes; visit their web­sites for details about sub­mit­ting. Trans­porta­tion Nation recently reported almost 400 aban­doned bikes to the city for removal.
  • Recy­cle it! The newly launched pilot pro­gram Bike Res­cue NYC trans­ports and sal­vages aban­doned bikes for recy­cling or reuse. The pro­gram uti­lizes a trained team of cyclists and work­ers and believes in hon­or­ing the dig­nity and indi­vid­u­al­ity of every bicycle.
  • Report it! If you pre­fer to keep it old school, you can report the bike directly to the Depart­ment of San­i­ta­tion by call­ing 311 with a full descrip­tion and location.

If your own bike is ready to retire, con­sider donat­ing it to an orga­ni­za­tion like Recycle-A-Bicycle, a non-profit that runs bicy­cle edu­ca­tion and youth empow­er­ment programs.

Photo: Trans­porta­tion Nation