Axed single-space meters turned into bike racks (UPDATE)

For those wondering what would happen to the single-space meters, you now have an answer.

If that car was a bike, he wouldn't have gotten a ticket.

Some get removed completely and recycled. Others, as seen here, have found a new use as bike racks. There are a bunch of these scattered along Johnson Ave. and W. 235th Street in Riverdale, with more coming throughout the borough soon.

This has been a long time coming for some members of the community. Current Community Board 8 chairman Robert Fanuzzi said he has been trying to install bike racks in the area since at least two years ago.

Fanuzzi and fellow board member Thomas Durham drove through the community board, searching for corridors they could put bike racks in.

"We inventoried all the places that’d be great for bike racks and certainly Johnson Avenue was one of them," Fanuzzi said.

When he was the chair of the economic development committee, in 2009-10, "I heard from young families that this was the way to save local businesses was to make it more bike accessible, because lack of parking was a turnoff."

He made it very clear where else he would like to see bike racks.

"Where there is trouble parking there should be bike racks."

What do you think? Are these a good use of the old meters?

For past stories about the change of meters, check out here.

UPDATE: The Department of Transportation sent out a press release today about the new bike racks.

They say the city has converted 175 of the decommissioned parking meters throughout the city. Also, the city is currently reviewing responses to a Request for Proposals for a vendor to manufacture 6,000 additional racks to be installed at meters citywide to help meet the city’s growing demand for public bike parking.

"Our infrastructure needs to keep pace with new demands on city streets,” said DOT Commissioner Janette Sadik-Khan. “By transforming obsolete parking meters into off-the-rack bike parking, we are recycling old facilities to meet this growing need."

Made from galvanized, durable ductile iron, meter racks easily slide on to former parking meter posts that have had their heads removed following DOT’s installation of the new muni-meters. By taking advantage of already-installed infrastructure, the meter racks eliminate the cost of removing old posts combined with the cost of installing an entirely new bike rack.

The new meter rack’s design is based on the standard “Hoop” rack designed by Ian Mahaffy and Maarten De Greeve, which was selected as the winner of a DOT and Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum-sponsored competition in 2008.

New Yorkers can also request rack installations at nyc.gov/dot.