Austin City Council approved an update to the city’s bike parking code which will expand the amount of bike parking spaces available to cyclists.

The new code simplifies regulations for developments, making it easier for businesses and residential developers to determine how much bike parking they must provide, said Spencer Schumacher, a commissioner for the Urban Transportation Commission.

“The rules are clearer. It’s a lot easier for (businesses) to comply (and) for the city to check compliance on the rules,” Schumacher said. “The (previous) bike parking requirements were extremely onerous. To figure out how much bike parking you needed, … you had to go to six different sections of code.”

The updated rules double the required amount of bike parking for multifamily residential locations like apartment complexes, Schumacher said. 

“At West Campus specifically, (it will) have a big impact on new high-rise (apartments) that are going up,” Schumacher said.

Robert Lim, a second year aerospace graduate student, commutes to campus and around the city on his bicycle up to five times a week.

Lim said the bike parking spots are few and far between beyond campus. On campus, Lim locks his bike on street signs near Belmont Hall because the closest racks are a couple of blocks away by the Recreational Sports Center or the Visual Arts Center.

“There used to be a bike rack (at Belmont Hall),” Lim said. “They got rid of it, … and then it never got replaced.”

District 9 Council Member Zo Qadri said the updated regulations should bring about more bicycle parking on campus.

“My hope is that folks would be able to see more (parking spaces) if they choose to have a bike and they ride it to campus,” Qadri said. “Hopefully that’ll encourage people to (bike) rather than drive their car to campus.”

Schumacher said the city passed the Austin Strategic Mobility Plan in 2019 with the goal of evenly splitting modes of transportation people use to commute to work. He said the city aims to see half of commuters use means other than a car, like a bicycle. Only around 1.25% of people currently use a bike, but the city wants to increase that number to 5%, he said.

“We saw that as an opportunity to say, ‘while we’re looking at this section of code, why don’t we go ahead and update our bicycle parking requirements to make them much easier to follow’,” Schumacher said. “Also we (want to) see if we can increase the standard to promote more active lifestyles.”

Qadri said more changes to bike parking regulations will come in the future, such as “incentives for existing developments to provide more bike parking.”

“It’s important to make sure that we have ample bike parking for folks who choose to bike,” Qadri said. “It’s safer not to be in a car. It’s better for the environment.”