By Gus Saltonstall
A collection of bike racks was installed this month in front of Fairway Market on the Upper West Side.
Four racks are now stationed near the corner of West 74th and Broadway, in front of the popular grocer. When West Side Rag visited the store on Wednesday morning, all four of the racks had bikes attached to them, and additional bikes had also been placed in a straight line alongside the racks.
The installation of the bike racks follows a letter from Upper West Side Councilmember Gale Brewer last spring to the New York City Department of Transportation asking for the infrastructure.
“Many food delivery cyclists and residents park their bikes along the sidewalk in front of these two markets [Fairway and Citarella],” Brewer wrote, who was doing so on behalf of an Upper West Sider who had noted the overflow of bikes in front of the store. “While there is a bike rack at the location, the number of bikes far exceed the parking space available for bikes. I urge DOT to consider additional bike racks to accommodate the demand for bike parking.”
There is a smaller, already existing bike rack closer to the front of Citarella.
“I shop at Fairway every week and the bike parking situation there has become untenable,” an Upper West Side resident wrote to Brewer in May of 2025. “The bikes have completely taken over the sidewalks around Fairway, and there is just not nearly enough bike parking.”
Here is the difference in how the sidewalk space now looks with the new bike racks.
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Inexpensive ebikes wrapped in tape are almost certainly being used for commercial purposes so why are they on the sidewalk? You can’t ride a bike on a sidewalk. You can’t even park a commercial vehicle overnight on a city street. Put a bike rack in the street Citibike-style, don’t take sidewalk space for bikes.
Did you think that comment through before you posted it? And have you ever ridden a bike in NYC before? A bike parked in the street will be destroyed or stolen before you finish shopping. And the city bike style racks take up too much room and should be left to citybikes.
BTW some food trucks are “permanently” parked ( 24/7) on the street.
I’ve seen one get delivery of supplies by van.
They don’t seem to get tickets
Yes. This abuse needs to stop. Mamdani, where you at?
Let’s get rid of the some of the parking spaces for cars and replace them with bike racks.
Woop there it is! The mandatory anti-car comment.
They are on the sidewalk because the Mayor has eliminated any and all e-bike related offenses making these motorcycles even more dangerous than they already were.
That is untrue.
I hadn’t heard about that. What is your source of information?
The curb space is better used for trucks delivering food to the store.
A rack like one you describe could be placed around the corner, on 75th.
Sorry to hear this. Bikes and bikers are ruining our city.. (I don’t drive, not even a vehicle of any kind.)
No they aren’t. It is the people who can’t walk half a block to pick up their own food.
Over the past few months, there seemed to be a decrease in the number of bikes on 70th-71st/by McDonald’s & pizza place – and a concomitant increase in the number of bikes in front of Fairway.
Also some of the bikes in front of Fairway are “parked” there for hours….not there temporarily while person shops.
InstaCarters waiting for a Fairway job.
There’s a bike rack on the sidewalk on 95th St. where delivery guys leave their ebikes overnight. They take the train home and come back in the morning, so it’s free commercial parking on the sidewalk.
How many of the “bikes” were illegal Class 3 machines from GetWhizz?
Roll out the carpet for e-bikes! But cars bad!
Scott, you say e-bikes shouldn’t be on the sidewalk and commercial vehicles can’t park on the street overnight. True, but that is not a reason to give the space to underused private cars. You are arguing for inefficiency because a few rules exist. That is not policy, that is whining.
Adam, blaming the Mayor for making e-bikes dangerous does not change the fact that bikes move far more people in the same space than cars ever could. Fear does not equal logic.
Paul, claiming that curb space is better used for delivery trucks ignores that the vast majority of the street is already dominated by delivery vehicles and cars. A single bike rack does not prevent trucks from delivering. Your around the corner solution is just a way to push people inconveniently aside to protect your imaginary ideal of car supremacy.
Larry, saying bikes and bikers are ruining the city while admitting you do not drive or own any vehicle is peak entitlement. You are literally complaining about people using public space efficiently while contributing nothing yourself.
Jay, obsessing over illegal Class 3 machines misses the point entirely. Whether legal or not, bikes occupy orders of magnitude less space than a single parked car and move more people. Cars are the real danger to urban mobility.
Here is the reality for all of you. Bikes, racks, and even outdoor dining structures serve the public and maximize limited space. Private car storage serves almost no one and consumes the most space. If you cannot handle that, you are arguing for the least efficient, least fair, and most outdated use of public streets and should leave NYC for New Jersey.
So because people park insured and regisiterd cars, which they use to go to places like the middle of CT, legally on streets, the City should ignore illegal Class 3 e-bikes and illegal e-bike operation in general?
I don’t we’re on the same page.
Stop making excuses for the illegallities of e-bikes.
Hi UWSYIMBY,
I don’t drive (grew up in NYC) nor have any special affection for cars.
But know folks who drive – and am OK with that.
Also remember there are many building workers, small business workers, night workers etc who do drive in – they live far away without reliable mass transit. For example, check out mass transit to/from Rockland County or Yonkers. At night.
Neighborhood acquaintances have a car. One drives to her job as a special ed teacher in another borough. Her partner volunteers for an organization that serves the homeless and drives to bring supplies.
And LOL an elected official who messages “anti-car” does not hesitate to contact them when there is need for a car to drive stuff for a neighborhood event
UWSYIMBY, how are you a rational, compromising, thoughtful commenter? I didn’t know there were any like you. I was just about done with reading the comments on the UWSR because of the ranting against anything that the writer personally found objectionable as well as assumed that their position was the only one that anyone could conceivably hold. You have given me renewed faith in humankind.
Giving an aura that they are more “enlightened” than everyone else and those who see the world differently “should leave NYC for New Jersey” gives you renewed faith in humankind? Shows how exclusionary and ableist Manhattanites can be!
overall agree except about dining structures. Those on sidewalks do not maximize public space, they minimize it.
The car haters love to say that ‘only’ 27% of households here are car owning.’ That’s like saying Biden couldn’t have won in 2020 because 3/4 of counties voted trump. There are counties with 2,000 people and counties with 10,000,000. Guess which ones voted which way?
Like counties, households don’t vote. People do.
Most households of 3 or more have cars. Close to 40% of the population of the Upper West Side lives in homes with cars.
The percentage of us who ride bikes is far lower.
Your ‘fairness’ argument is a failure.
Thanks for taking the time to relay to all these comments. I particularly like Adam’s comment that “the Mayor has eliminated any and all e-bike related offenses” which is so obviously untrue that it’s laughable.
What if we built an “antifaschistischer schutzwall” around Manhattan and the desirable parts of Brooklyn to keep the car brained and conservative folks out? We need to follow what peer cities in Europe do, Berlin was a great example!
I have news for you, it seems that lots of folks are taking you up on your offer to leave NYC. Good luck with that.
Yup. And in 2 years or so they’ll be echoing Gov. Hochul who is now begging the rich people to come back to NY because she needs the tax revenue they were generating. We’ll see how many of those she called “not our kind of people” will listen to her now.
“Using public space efficiently”. Urbanists don’t care about people, they care about “efficiency”. How far is the average motor vehicle trip? How far is the average bike trip? How many bike trips were made by public transit before the proliferation of bike infrastructure? One thing is certain, the urbanists themselves lament using public transit unless they have to. If you see how they act towards public transit, it is not about what actually works, it is about dogma and trying to force everyone else’s transportation needs into a box.
“Leave NYC for New Jersey”? The same YIMBY’s pushing this agenda are trying to push this in New Jersey too. Furthermore, I think NYC needs a crash course in how intertwined NYC is with NJ economically. Imagine this, for one day we shut down the GWB, Lincoln and Holland Tunnel just like how the Soviet Union blockaded West Berlin in 1948. What if we also shut down NJ Transit commuter rail too? The same political leaders that impliedly believe that people should move to New Jersey if they do not fit a certain mold will be the same ones filing lawsuits to stop this crying foul. New Jersey is not NYC’s colony to exploit!
That stretch of sidewalk is already frequently congested. This will just make it work. Brilliant!
The advent of e-bike deliveries has ruined this city. Get off your backside and go to a store (yes, I know that some people cannot do so, but the vast majority can). E-bikes should be eliminated. Remember the good old days when stores had very narrow delivery zones? The Seinfeld episode where Elaine stood in front of another building because she lived out of the zone? Let’s go back to that. And get rid of these e-bike deliveries. Or worst case charge a huge premium for them so people will have an incentive not to use them.
Now get off my lawn (or sidewalk)!
PARK IN THE GUTTER, THAT IS WHERE ALL THE BIKE LANES ARE. SIDEWALKS ARE FOR PEOPLE WALKING.
There’s so many lower traffic areas and empty storefronts in the immediate vicinity. Why couldn’t they put the bike stations in front of any single one of those?
99.9999999% of these are always taken up by door dashers etc They are NOT going to Fairway etc the use it as a hang out spot till they get a job from a nearby restaurant.
Yikes. That stretch of road/sidewalk is already one of the most congested blocks in all of the UWS. This will only make it worse.
Who exactly is Gale serving in this city? Certainly not long-time residents. She’s completely out of touch with reality.
The majority of the people voted for her. This is the problem.
I like being able to park my bicycle near where I shop and there was kind of a dearth of spots there. I understand and share reservations about ebikes, which are really electric motorbikes, with dangerous and hard-to-dispose-of batteries. They would require licenses if they had gas motors instead. It doesn’t make sense. There’s a role for them in the city but right now maybe it’s too much.
I often have lamented that I will have trouble finding a spot to lock my bike when visiting Citarella and/or Fairway, but I don’t see this advent as any help. As we can see from the photos, and as others have commented, delivery bikes get semi-permanently fastened to the racks (and always, always in the way that hogs the entire rack: side note, even most non-delivery cyclists seem to have no clue that the racks were meant to be used for two bikes at an angle to the rack, not a single bike parallel to it), leaving no space for regular folks who would use the rack for 15 minutes while shopping. I don’t know what the solution would be, but it’s obvious that this present “gift” for that block will be lost on those who might have benefited, and will be abused by delivery bikes.
if it’s only 15 minutes you’re looking for, why not lock your bike to anything else that is also locked to the rack? easy peasey.
a new york solution for a needed new york minute.
The sidewalk in front of Fairway is always congested, mountains of food delivery crates make for an often dangerous obstacle course for pedestrians,and there are always HUGE trucks that seem to never go away.Inside Fairway, the lines have become horrendous due to Instacart shoppers who buy giagantic amounts of food (they ought to create a separate line just for those shoppers, who make shopping for the rest of us interminable and exhausting.) And now bike racks on sidewalks?? Because the curb areas are blocked by delivery trucks?Life is hard enough.
Given that Fairway uses – and NEEDS – the ENTIRE sidewalk for deliveries during the day and garbage (mostly broken down boxes) at night, this seems like one of the truly dumbest places they could possibly have put bike racks in the areas around or near the store.
You’d be surprised at how many UWS residents use their cars to go food shopping in New Jersey with their cars.
On Thursday at about 5:15 there were many e-bikes parked in front of Fairway.
None of the bikes were in the new racks.
Also a cluster of bikes parked at the corner, impacting the crosswalk and placement of trash bin (this has been the situation for a while)
There were also 4 mini-motorcycles parked by the hydrant on 74th Street.
Not understanding that this is permitted by a hydrant?
A few blocks south, there continue to be fewer bikes in front of McDonald’s (It does seem they’ve relocated to Fairway permanently.)
There were no bikes in the new bike racks in the street
These are ALL delivery e-bikes. As soon as DOT installs these they are taken up by these huge, awkward vehicles which often make it impossible for a pedal bike to share the rack. So thanks for nothing, basically. Another boon for the e-commerce sector