Updated Schedule

Due to scheduling constraints of the Jury, the announcement of the winner of the in-building competition and the ten finalists for the sidewalk rack competition will now be made on July 15.  An updated sidewalk rack competition schedule is posted below:

Stage II Competitors Announced: 15 July 2008

Stage II Briefing: 22 July 2008

Stage II Question Period Ends: 4 August 2008

Stage II Answers Posted Online: 8 August 2008

Stage II Prototypes Submission Deadline: 15 September 2008

Exhibition Opening and Installation on Public Sidewalks: 30 September 2008

Awards Announced: 24 October 2008

June 9th!

June 9th is just around the corner. If you are pre-registered for the competition don’t forget –

Submissions should be sent or delivered to:
Zac Frank
40 Worth Street, Room 1005
New York, NY 10013

Submissions must be received at this address before 5:00 p.m. (EDT) on 9 June 2008. Competitors
assume all responsibility for insuring that their Submission arrives before the stated deadline.

Some updates

The competition handbooks have been updated to make clarifications that arose out of questions submitted concerning the intellectual property provisions of the design competition materials. (Please review the handbooks and section 2.10, in particular, carefully.)

Photos of the current CityRacks on NYC streets have also been added in downloads.

Wow!

Phew! We finally finished tallying up the registration forms and here’s what we’ve got:

1202 people/teams registered for the sidewalk competition

719 for the in-building competition

Including many ambitious teams who registered for both.

We’ll keep updating this blog as the competition progresses.

Pre-Registration is Now Closed - Thanks!

Pre-registration for the competition is now closed. If you registered in the past few days you should be receiving an e-mail confirmation shortly. Due to overwhelming response we’re a tiny bit behind on data entry. We have over 1,000 people and teams pre-registered for the outdoor competition and over 500 for the in-building competition. As designs start rolling in we’ll post some sneak previews here so check back often, and thanks again for your interest!

Let the Competition Begin!

The New York City Department of Transportation (DOT), in partnership with the Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum and the support of Google Inc. and Transportation Alternatives, is pleased to announce an international design competition for new bicycle parking for the City of New York. As part of our effort to promote cycling as a sustainable, mainstream transportation option and in keeping with the environmental goals of PlaNYC 2030, DOT is seeking to tap the creative energy of the world design and art communities for this important element of street furniture.

The purpose of the competition is to develop functional, well-designed sidewalk racks and to generate new concepts for bicycle parking inside commercial and residential buildings. These two initiatives, in addition to NYCDOT’s commitment to increasing the number of miles of bicycle facilities, providing the City’s first sheltered bike parking stations and creating more bicycle parking at transit stations, will raise the profile of bicycling as a convenient mode of transportation in New York.

Although bicycle lanes are the most noticeable element of the City’s cycling infrastructure, access to parking is also essential. Indeed, a study conducted by the Department of City Planning found that lack of access to secure bike parking was the primary reason cyclists did not ride to work. The current standard fixture for bicycle parking consists of variations of a fabricated square steel tube called the “CityRack” that is mounted on sidewalks. These fixtures occupy little space on the sidewalk and do not obstruct the flow of people or goods. New York City currently has thousands of CityRacks within its five boroughs and plans to add thousands more in the foreseeable future. The CityRack design, however, has been in use for over ten years and does not fulfill the potential to be an icon for New York City cycling.

The City intends to use the winning sidewalk rack as its new standard for bicycle parking. The design for the in-building rack will first be installed by Google in its New York City headquarters. It may also be used by City-owned buildings in the future, when possible.