Bike Racks and LEED

[TwoWheelsDC]

@dbb 120922 wrote:

Interesting piece from the green community. Suggests encouraging cycling is a more cost effective way to save energy than building zero-energy buildings, as commuting by single occupancy vehicle consumes about the same energy as heating/cooling a worker’s portion of an office building. The author says bike racks are an easier way to save energy and more green advocates should embrace them.

https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/what-leed-bike-rack-haters-missing-tristan-roberts?woo_campaign=BGB150727&woo_content=editors-picks&utm_source=BuildingGreen.com+Mailing+List&utm_campaign=4993bbcf15-BGB_2015_07_27_NM&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_d558b0594a-4993bbcf15-157341129&mc_cid=4993bbcf15&mc_eid=9b1721510c

This should not be taken as an argument to do only one but to get designers to look to the larger environmental benefit of cycling.

Food for thought.

Note: LEED is Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design, from the US Green Building Council, one of the green building standards out there.

My issue with this, and maybe I’m mistaken, is that LEED gives lots of points for these types of low-hanging fruit, so builders can just make the cheap, easy fixes in a half-assed way rather than make meaningful changes to the structure itself. I think if there was more specificity in the standards and the infra had to be excellent to get the points, the LEED process would be a bit more meaningful.

[mstone]

@TwoWheelsDC 120930 wrote:

My issue with this, and maybe I’m mistaken, is that LEED gives lots of points for these types of low-hanging fruit, so builders can just make the cheap, easy fixes in a half-assed way rather than make meaningful changes to the structure itself. I think if there was more specificity in the standards and the infra had to be excellent to get the points, the LEED process would be a bit more meaningful.

The flip side is that without some encouragement, they don’t make the cheap easy fixes at all.

[consularrider]

I believe the State Department’s Standard Embassy Design includes bike racks as part of their LEED certification. I saw them on my visits to Embassies Younde and Quito. Embassy Kyiv has two bike racks by the main CAC, the wave style. Yesterday there were two bikes there parked at them longways (sigh). Sorry I can’t take a photo, but you know, security…

[mstone]

@consularrider 120943 wrote:

I believe the State Department’s Standard Embassy Design includes bike racks as part of their LEED certification. I saw them on my visits to Embassies Younde and Quito. Embassy Kyiv has two bike racks by the main CAC, the wave style. Yesterday there were two bikes there parked at them longways (sigh). Sorry I can’t take a photo, but you know, security…

It goes without saying that LEED should give no points for crappy bike racks.

[Justin Antos]

What if LEED gave points conditionally for bike racks, but only if the builder can show that after a year or something that they’re actually being used? Then the advocacy and encouragement side might follow. And it might encourage the builders to think about their building’s bike accessibility, or lack thereof.

[dbb]

@consularrider 120943 wrote:

I believe the State Department’s Standard Embassy Design includes bike racks as part of their LEED certification. I saw them on my visits to Embassies Younde and Quito. Embassy Kyiv has two bike racks by the main CAC, the wave style. Yesterday there were two bikes there parked at them longways (sigh). Sorry I can’t take a photo, but you know, security…

Standard forum rules – Pictures or it didn’t happen

[dbb]

@Justin Antos 120985 wrote:

What if LEED gave points conditionally for bike racks, but only if the builder can show that after a year or something that they’re actually being used? Then the advocacy and encouragement side might follow. And it might encourage the builders to think about their building’s bike accessibility, or lack thereof.

There have been several ideas floated in the past to make the green certification be subject to some actual verification when the building is in use. Case in point – the new building at 7th and D (the dramatically rehabbed DOT building) is LEED certified (gold I believe) and for the past 2-3 years has had lights illuminating the flags on 24 hours per day (I just looked out my window and the only ones that are not illuminated are burned out). Evidence that building operational performance is pretty low on the list of things that is important. Some articles have suggested using velcro to hold the green certification plaque on the wall so it could be un-earned with suitable evidence.

[rcannon100]

@consularrider 120943 wrote:

I believe the State Department’s Standard Embassy Design includes bike racks as part of their LEED certification. I saw them on my visits to Embassies Younde and Quito. Embassy Kyiv has two bike racks by the main CAC, the wave style. Yesterday there were two bikes there parked at them longways (sigh). Sorry I can’t take a photo, but you know, security…

What – you mean these racks??

[ATTACH=CONFIG]9211[/ATTACH]

[Powerful Pete]

I believe they also have additional racks on the inside of the complex, close to the main guard house, but I could be wrong… old age and all that.

[dasgeh]

@consularrider 120943 wrote:

I believe the State Department’s Standard Embassy Design includes bike racks as part of their LEED certification. I saw them on my visits to Embassies Younde and Quito. Embassy Kyiv has two bike racks by the main CAC, the wave style. Yesterday there were two bikes there parked at them longways (sigh). Sorry I can’t take a photo, but you know, security…

Someone needs to tell this to Main State.

[consularrider]

Dasgeh, I did that for the last seven years. You should have seen the really crappy racks in the garage at OBO (responsible for the design and building of new embassies) in a silver LEED building. Feels great to be retired.

[consularrider]

@Powerful Pete 120997 wrote:

I believe they also have additional racks on the inside of the complex, close to the main guard house, but I could be wrong… old age and all that.

The Google Street View is a couple years old while the building was still under construction. The wave racks by the main CAC (compound access control) are visible.

[PotomacCyclist]

@consularrider 120943 wrote:

I believe the State Department’s Standard Embassy Design includes bike racks as part of their LEED certification. I saw them on my visits to Embassies Younde and Quito. Embassy Kyiv has two bike racks by the main CAC, the wave style. Yesterday there were two bikes there parked at them longways (sigh). Sorry I can’t take a photo, but you know, security…

The other side doesn’t appear to be the case, that of foreign embassies in DC. I’ve passed by many of the embassies near Dupont Circle and on Massachusetts Ave. this month while mapping bike racks for RackSpotter. None of the embassies on Mass. Ave. east of Rock Creek Park have any publicly available bike racks. (Maybe they have bike racks at the rear, but those aren’t accessible to the general public.)

But there are bike racks alongside the House of Sweden, which includes the Embassy of Sweden and the Embassy of Iceland, on the Georgetown waterfront:

[ATTACH=CONFIG]9222[/ATTACH]

[Brendan von Buckingham]

LEED. If it’s your MBA dissertation you’re cum laude. If it’s your engineering dissertation you flunk out. LEED works exactly the way it’s intended.

[UrbanEngineer]

@mstone 120966 wrote:

It goes without saying that LEED should give no points for crappy bike racks.

Previous versions of LEED only prescribed that bicycle storage/racks be “secure” and within 200 yards of the building entrance. They didn’t elaborate on what was or was not secure. This resulted in some really crappy racks getting LEED points. The latest version of LEED has defined it much better. It now requires racks to support the bicycle in at least two places and allow the bike to be locked through both the frame and at least one wheel with a u-lock.

One of the big organizations in green building design here in the US is ASHRAE. They literally wrote the standard for the design of High Performance Green Buildings. A few years back they renovated their building to be LEED Platinum and then wrote an article about the renovations. In the article they said their newly installed bike racks are always empty. Here’s a map that shows where they are located:https://www.google.com/maps/place/ASHRAE/@33.8345458,-84.3292586,360m/data=!3m1!1e3!4m2!3m1!1s0x88f506233606925b:0x3608df8501dd7ccc!6m1!1e1?hl=en It’s no wonder nobody uses them. The lack of connectivity via public transit, walking, or biking to anything basically ensures that everybody is going to drive there. Back to the original point of this thread and using this ASHRAE building as an example. There is nothing they could do to this building that would make it as environmentally friendly as any building in the CBD of DC because of it’s lack of connectivity. Even if the building itself is a net zero building, it’s pretty much an inherently wasteful building just by being where it is.

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