That GMC truck to the left in the pic with the cyclist is disgusting to me. That monster is huge. Although, the person driving could be using it for work.

I’ve biked to Ikea in New Haven many times. They have a shoddy bike rack in front. Not much but something.

So is there a bike rack at Ikea or anywhere else to lockup your bike?

Heard a couple of weeks ago that they were catching big bluefish as large as 17 pounds and stripers nearby.

went for the opening yesterday (did not score a free chair, but the kids got free stuffed toys)…there were at least a dozen bikes locked to the fence running along the front of the store. I did not see any racks. A sad oversight.

I would like to second the kudos for the esplanade – it is marvelously evocative of Red Hook’s maritime history – the design incorporates the tools of the ship-building/repair trade (rope, concrete blocks, winches and carts, not to mention the 3 or 4 massive cranes still standing) in a way that’s both attractive and informative.

Although it was promised, there is no bike rack at this IKEA yet. It was reported on the Brian Lehrer show yesterday that it had not yet been installed.

Considering that delivery is so cheap within Brooklyn ($39, cheaper than renting a car for five or six hours) they should have TONS of bike parking. I’d imagine a lot of people would make the trip from Park Slope, Carrol Gardens, Brooklyn Heights, etc. if there was a secure place to park, especially since they wouldn’t pay much to get their stuff shipped home.

It’s a small thing, but why do so many big box stores and companies promise one thing and then not follow through! They could have spent $100 on a cheap bike rack and few people would have complained.

I rode my folder down there and tucked it in a shopping cart. A former co-worker of mine is a manager there, they’ve been scrambling for opening day, there will be bike racks, I’m pretty sure.

What a beautiful job. It seems to me that there’s box stores and there’s box stores, and Ikea really knows what it’s about. They will deliver within a 70 mile radius for $80 (t may seem like a lot, but that is a flat rate and would probably be less than 10% of any major expedition there), although signs within the store suggest “taking it with you.” I tried to get some Swedish meatballs, but the cafes were so overwhelmed, I couldn’t get close. Clarence, Gapco and gecko are so right about the esplanade/park. It’s very fine.

Zealous environmentalists are never going to be happy. But Red Hook and Brooklyn come out ahead. Way ahead.

suspect a quick call to dot will provide bike racks.

Call IKEA and ask to speak to a manager.

718-246-IKEA (4532)

Be polite and ask them when and if they plan to install a bike rack.

I suspect that having a bike rack installed will be easier than dealing with dozens of phone calls from people. With a new store to manage, who wants to spend so much time fielding phone calls?

I have a difficult time understanding this whinging about bike racks. Yesterday was the store’s First Day. The First Day. An early opening, customer movement, the POS system, escalators and elevators, safety, employee scheduling, stocking, bus shuttle service, water taxi service–all these things (and that’s just a partial list) had to be coordinated by a mix of seasoned and new employees in a completely new infrastructure. And you (I don’t mean every comment, just a few) are crying because you didn’t have bike racks the moment the store opened its doors early on its first day? No one at Ikea had any problems when bikes were locked to railings. Have you never worked in a busy environment like this?

What are the words? Get a grip? Get a life? Calm down for one moment? Get over yourself? If there are no bike racks after two weeks to a month, then there will be a reason to ask for an explanation.

PaulB, imagine a store opening without enough parking for cars. Would you tell people to wait two months? If someone wants to go spend hundreds of dollars on a new couch at IKEA, it seems like very little to ask for to have a safe place to store one’s bike. How much would a bike rack cost? A few hundred dollars? Plus, a person who doesn’t drive there means that there will be one more space in the already clogged parking lot. In that case, a bike rack would be good for business, giving the store the ability to turn over more customers per hour or day.

Additionally, as was linked to in a comment above, IKEA promised bike racks. When the attention of opening goes away, will the pressure to live up to this promise go with it? (See the NoVo apartment building and its promises to renovate a nearby park as an example of this.)

Considering that nearby neighborhoods have large numbers of bike commuters, it’s reasonable to be disappointed that they didn’t install a rack for so much as a single bike. In fact, in light of how much effort was put into new water taxis, shuttle buses, and a park — not to mention how much community opposition there was to this store — how hard would it have been to install a metal rack? It would have gone a long way towards building good relations and would have been great PR and would have set the standard by which all other developments would have been judged.

Car culture will be changed in this city the day that new buildings open with adequate bike parking so that cycling is not seen as an afterthought but as legitimate an option to getting around as driving or taking the subway.

Josh (#18):

In view of the fact that they actually constructed a whole bunch of waterfront park (in contradiction to what other developers do), I have a hard time complaining about the lack of bike parking.

It’s great that they did what sounds like a nice job with the park (I’m on my way there after I write this), but remember, they didn’t do it just out of the goodness of their hearts. It was a business decision – they needed the support of (or at least, to control the opposition of) the community board and local elected officials.

How do they achieve that? “I’ll give you a park if you let me construct this business.” Then the stakeholders decide if it’s a tradeoff that they can live with.

D,

Your disappointment is noted–stop the presses!!–but it is NOT reasonable. There are spots to lock up a bike until bike racks arrive and there will be plenty of opportunity later to pin the store manager’s ears back if they don’t. Ikea is a clever outfit and they may just surprise you with some very classy new-style bike racks.

BTW.

When Whole Foods on Union Square opened a few years ago, they needed bike racks. I called it in to DOT and they were put in right away.

And it is necessary to shop at this store….why?

Re: #28

The bike and trailer loan system is a wonderful idea (and certainly another reminder of how far behind we are here in promoting cycling as transit), but not without a major drawback, which is having to return the darn thing to IKEA and pick up your old bicyle (that’s two extra trips). I think the more bicycle-friendly approach would be to have a city-wide (or county-wide?) bike share program that included in the inventory some bicycle and trailer set-ups. At the very least, maybe IKEA could have a drop-off point at some major transit hub, and if you initially rode a folding bike that you hauled back in the trailer, you’d be all set.

Just to send some positive light on this bicycle issue at Ikea, I went today via the Water Taxi (Saturday evening) and I did see a couple of bicycles leave the ferry. So you can get your bike onto the ferry, they keep it on the side. As for the bike racks, correct me if I’m wrong but a bike rack does exist. I believe it’s adjacent to that Thor Equities/Ikea overflow area. It’s on Beard Street, walk to the north entrance of Erie Basin Park where the sidewalk ends and there should be a rack right on the sidewalk. It’s quite a walk to the main entrance but it’s better than nothing. The traffic itself is another story.

There is a bike rack at Ikea, I saw it yesterday (June 21). If you bike down the Columbia street side (or whatever the street is on the east side of Ikea), there’s a little guard house. If you enter the road just behind the guard house, there’s a path that leads up to the bike rack. (The friendly guards were the ones who pointed it out to me, as well as the unmarked bike path in the parking lot.) It’s on the far side of the parking lot, which is not exactly the closest place, but it is there. It would be nice to have racks closer to the entrance, but maybe there are too many pedestrians there.

There were a ton of fences by the entrance, and a lot of bikes were locked up to it. No one harassed me about locking my bike up to the fence.

As for streets congestion, I didn’t actually notice that much, even though there were a ton of cars parked. Maybe this is due to the time that I left (late Saturday afternoon), and the exit that I took (the east side, versus the west which had a lot of buses).

I’m not quite sure why you think that IKEA should definitely allow bikes on the ferry to eliminate the “crapshoot” element.

Really?

What if motorists faced the same dilemma, d? Drive on over to IKEA — maybe we’ll have parking today, or maybe we won’t. It’s up to the store manager’s day-to-day discretion.

It’s a ridiculous policy borne of the mindset that bicycles are recreational and not part of a city’s transportation network.

The ferries were negotiated and established as a part of community benefits agreement when the IKEA project was initially approved. The ferries are supposed to serve as an additional transportation link for anyone traveling between Manhattan and Red Hook. The ferries are not exclusively for the use of IKEA shoppers. Cyclists should be accommodated as they are on pretty much all the other ferries in the New York Harbor.

And if cyclists really can’t be accommodated for some legitimate reason, then the policy should, at least, be consistent from day to day.

The car analogy fails. What if drivers drove to the ferry and expected to be able to take their cars on the ferry? Isn’t it within the company’s right to say, “No, we’d like to make sure there is room for our customers, or even for more people in general who are just going to enjoy their day by foot.” Whether you have a car or a bike, the answer is to park somewhere near the pier and then take the ferry to Red Hook.

I don’t think anyone saying that the ferries are the exclusive use of IKEA shoppers. In fact, the company has repeatedly said that anyone can use them and that’s a great benefit to the community, especially for people who live in Red Hook and need to get into Manhattan. But even Metro North limits the number of cycles per car and I believe you’re not supposed to take them on at rush hour. People on foot should always get priority over people with bikes. So I don’t think it’s a problem that IKEA limits bikes on the ferry.

Also, comparing this ferry to other ferries doesn’t work. The Staten Island ferry is huge and can fit hundreds of passengers, and the number of bikes it takes as a percentage of its total available space is small. This is a water taxi, and probably fits no more than 50 or 60 people. Should the boat not allow more passengers on because limited space is taken up by bikes? Seems pretty reasonable that the water taxi lets bikes on when there is room and doesn’t when there isn’t. If I showed up to ride the ferry and was told there was no room, I’d be pretty ticked if I saw three or four bikes being rolled on. As it stands now, they load people first and if there is room for bikes, they let them on at the end. Fair enough.

The parking AT the store is a totally different issue, Davis, and I think you are conflating that issue with the issue of bikes on the ferry. Of course the store would never be built without enough car parking and it would be nice to think that someone somewhere viewed bike parking as an important part of a community. But to think that a private company has to allow bikes on the ferry at all times, even if they worked something out with the city in exchange for permission to build, seems a bit much for now. Remember, this ferry is FREE even if you aren’t shopping at the store. Aside from the parking issue, I think the ferry as it operates now is very reasonable in terms of its bike policy.

Spectacular, spectacular! What Ikea did with piers; really extensive and right across the street from the urban farm. Heard one person mention that it was almost like a museum.

It probably won’t take alot to get Ikea engaged in a lot of other good local work as it seems that they aim to please.

Oops, I meant for the quotes to go around “definitive” and not “policy.” What I mean is that I don’t believe they have to have a set in stone policy.

As an example, look at Metro North’s policy:

http://www.mta.info/mnr/html/getaways/bikerule.htm

Occupancy Limitations i. On weekdays two (2) bicycles will be permitted per car with a maximum of four (4) bicycles per train. Bicycles shall be placed in the two rear cars of inbound trains or the two front cars of outbound trains unless otherwise directed by train crew. Groups of more than four (4) bicyclists traveling together must make advance arrangements with Metro-North for carriage.

Sort of open-ended, isn’t it? What if you show up at a station and there are already 4 bikes on the train? (Not a large number considering the number of cars per train.) What you do is hope for the courtesy of a conductor who will judge the situation and, if there’s room, let you on. Otherwise, you wait for the next one. Why? Because MetroNorth is in the business of providing rides for people, not people with bikes. So, even in a case with a defined, written policy, there has to be room for discretion. Seems reasonable.

NY Water taxi has different policies than the taxi that is dedicated to ferrying passengers to IKEA. The idea is that they want to leave room for people coming back to carry their bag full ‘o stuff, so they don’t always want bikes on board. That’s why they leave it up to the crew to make decisions on the spot. Regular rules don’t apply.

Go in a bunch (at least 4 people) and just park in one of the car spaces and lock to each other’s bikes. And then complain bitterly to management once inside about how there’s no place for you to park.

IF you want, leave someone near the bikes.
It’s not like they are sanctified spaces.
Make a stink, but be calm with IKEA and other parkers and explain the situation.