Photo by Julia Dahl
Bicycle parking at Union Station leaves a lot to be desired. If the Department of Transportation gets its way, next year this will be the site of a glass-enclosed bicycle parking facility, complete with lockers and a repair shop.

It’s been years in the making, but this fall the District hopes to become home to the East Coast’s first European-style “Bikestation”

by JULIA DAHL

The saga of the Union Station bike station began more than three years ago, when Jim Sebastian, bicycle manager at the District Department of Transportation, visited Seattle, and saw the future.

There, on the corner of Pioneer Square and Main Street, at the hub of the city’s downtown transportation district, was a new storefront called Bikestation Seattle. Inside the big glass windows was safe parking for 70 bikes, a retail and repair shop, and even a locker room for bicycle commuters to shower and change before going to work. The system was simple: pay to park for a dollar a day, or buy a membership for $15 a month or $100 a year. Members can use the facility 24/7, and non-members have to have their bikes out by 7 p.m.

“It was such an inspiration,” said Sebastian, who has biked to work from his home in Takoma Park every day for six years.

Sebastian started thinking about how Washington, D.C., which, according to the District Department of Transportation, is home to 10,000 daily bike commuters, could become the first East Coast city to build such a station.

“We kicked the idea around for several years,” said Sebastian. “But there have been a lot of questions. Where was the best space? Who should fund it? Who should run it?”

Sebastian looked at several possible sites, including Tenleytown and Anacostia, and solicited opinions from local bicycle enthusiasts. Over and over he heard the same thing: Union Station.

“Union Station is traditionally the hub for transportation in the district, so it makes sense that it should be the hub for bicyclists, too,” said Jeff Peel, program manager at the non-profit Washington Area Bicyclist Association.

Kevin Costello, who has worked as a bike courier downtown for six years, agreed.

“Bike parking at Union Station is horrible,” said Costello. “Racks like that attract derelict bikes. People just park them there and leave them.” And with fewer than 50 spots, the spaces fill up fast.

With the Union Station spot in mind, Sebastian contacted Andrea White, executive director of Bikestation, a non-profit based in Long Beach, Calif.

“We needed someone who knew what they were talking about,” Sebastian said. “There were bike shops and engineering firms here, but no one with the unique experience of putting it all together.”

Bikestation was conceived in the early 1990s by a man named John Case, a resident of Long Beach who envisioned promoting bicycling as an alternative means of transportation by providing simple, secure access to parking in downtown areas. Modeled conceptually and architecturally after the indoor bicycle parking centers in Japan and the Netherlands, the Long Beach station was erected in 1996; the first of its kind in the United States. Over the next 10 years, Bikestation expanded to the San Francisco Bay Area — there are stations in Berkeley, Palo Alto and San Francisco’s Embarcadero neighborhood — as well as Seattle, and soon D.C.

Each Bikestation is run through a public-private partnership, said White, with funds coming from the municipality, the local transit agency, grants and membership fees. The day-to-day operations, however, are farmed out to private companies (usually a local bike shop) or local non-profits. With a small staff and limited means, Bikestation consults with interested communities, advising them how to put together a plan for a bicycle transit center, but the heavy lifting is done by the city.

So in September 2003, Sebastian approached the Union Station Redevelopment Corporation with the idea. The District Department of Transportation was already working with the corporation on planned improvements to Columbus Plaza, and they struck a deal granting the transportation agency use of a sliver of land just west of the station. Funding was the next step. Th transportation department had recently received money from the federally-funded Congestion Mitigation and Air Quality Improvement Program to launch the Circulator bus and to stripe approximately 25 miles of metro streets for bike lanes, and Sebastian thought the improvement program might be just the place to get funds for the station. He was right, and in 2005, Congestion Mitigation and Air Quality Improvement Program approved the idea, which Sebastian estimated would cost somewhere around $2 million.

Finally, Sebastian solicited KGP Design Studio, and, taking cues from the glass pyramid outside the Louvre in Paris, as well as the oblong shape of a bike helmet, the firm came up with a space that resembles a half-moon greenhouse, with approximately 1,200 square feet of bike parking (enough for about 180 bikes) and 500 square feet for retail. The building is environmentally friendly; the glazed glass panels capture the sun’s heat in the winter and slide open to allow for easy airflow during the rest of the year.

Design in hand, Sebastian went back to the bicycling public.

John Bruno, owner of Bikes at Vienna, a specialty bike shop in Vienna, Va., attended some meetings in 2005 and thought the idea was intriguing but somewhat flawed.

“The way they had it envisioned, I didn’t think there would be enough retail space,” said Bruno.

Bruno’s concerns came partly from knowledge that other Bikestations operated mostly through government subsidies.

“Without more retail space,” said Bruno, “they can’t break even.”

But Andrea White, executive direector of Bikestation, said that though several Bikestations do need subsidies to stay afloat, the Long Beach station now makes 90 percent of what it costs to stay open.

“I actually think the D.C. project has huge potential to become the first truly self-sustaining location,” said White. But, she added, the process takes a long time. “D.C. has only been working on this for two years. On average, from start to finish, it takes six years to get a Bikestation up and running.”

At a public meeting last week, White, Sebastian, and Donald Paine of KGP Design Studio presented the project — which is scheduled to begin construction in August — to a small crowd of bike shop owners, couriers and assorted enthusiasts. The meeting was lively, and Sebastian fielded questions and complaints about what some called the “cramped” site (”I hear you,” he responded, “but we got the space for free”), the decision not to include showers (installing new pipes under Union Station would be an engineering nightmare), and the potential for excessive loitering in the area.

“You could add a social service aspect,” suggested one man. “Have ex-cons or recovering addicts staff the store.”

“How will the buses get around it?” asked one woman. “And will there be nearby seating?”

“Have you considered corporate sponsorship?” asked another.

Corporate sponsorship, apparently, was not something Sebastian had thought of, and though he said he was open to all ideas, White guesses the idea won’t fly the way it has in Chicago, where the city’s Millennium Park is home to the McDonald’s Cycling Center.

“D.C. is generally pretty conservative about the way it looks,” said White. In other words, the Burger King Bikestation might look crass sandwiched in between the austere columns of Union Station and the Postal Museum.

Sebastian said he plans to issue a request for proposals to operate the station in April. The merchant — who will be chosen, according to Sebastian, on the basis of experience and various financials — will staff the station and have the freedom to set up the repair shop and retail store as they see fit.

So far, however, few local shops seem willing to throw their hat in the ring.

Bruno of Bikes at Vienna said he’d pass, citing the fact that operating a satellite would take him away from his home base. The managers at Revolution Cycles and Big Wheel Bikes hadn’t even heard of the project (though, when informed, Mike Sendar, owner of Bike Wheels, said he “would be interested”), and Peel said that WABA probably wouldn’t put in a bid.

“But we do hope to be the first to buy memberships,” Peel said.

While Sebastian searches for an operator, even the somewhat distant prospect of a building erected solely for them has D.C. cyclists excited.

“To most people here bikes are a toy, something little kids use,” said Costello. “People don’t think you’re an adult if you don’t have a car.”

Costello, Sebastian, Peel and the rest of the area cyclists hope the publicity will encourage metro drivers to be more courteous to bike riders, and maybe even move more people from four wheels to two.