short term bicycle racks for foreign visitors

Hi Jade, Although the majority of the visitors may be foreign, the intent of the credit is to provide bike spaces for those visitors should they decide to bike. There is no formal guidance that says a portion of the visitors may be exempt from the calculations for short-term bike parking, therefore my assumption is that they all have to be included. In other words, yes, you do need to provide bike racks for the foreign visitors. Hope this helps!

Hi Kimberly, I posted some time ago a related query you may be able to assist with. I am working on a hotel with supporting restaurant and conference facilities. We are considering visitors to the conference centre and restaurants in our cycle provision; however, based on previous discussions on this forum, I understand excluding hotel guests from the calculations has been an approach previously accepted by the USGBC. It would be great if you could let me know if your understanding is the same than mine.

Hi Alicia, You are correct that in past versions of LEED hotel guests could be excluded from the bike storage calculations. The CIR Ruling (9/14/2006) established that "Excluding a certain type of transient occupants from the required bicycle stall and shower calculations is permissible per previous v2.1 CIR Rulings dated 6/4/2003 and 8/7/2002. Please include a short narrative indicating the number of visitors who have been excluded from these calculations and an explanation of why this type of visitor cannot reasonably be expected to arrive at this destination on or with a bicycle that would benefit from onsite storage facilities." However, after looking at the v4 Reference Guide it would appear that this ruling has changed in v4. In the Getting Started section of the v4 NC Reference Guide it gives the following guidance on calculating occupancy for hotels. "Hotel guests are typically considered regular building occupants, with some credit-specific exceptions. Calculate the number of overnight hotel guests based on the number and size of unites in the project. Assume 1.5 occupants per guest room and multiply the resulting total by 60% (average hotel occupancy). Alternatively, the number of hotel guests may be derived from actual or historical occupancy." This section is followed by a table that reflects what occupancy calculations must be completed for each project type variation. The table says that NC, C&S, Data Centers, Warehouses, Distribution Centers, and Hospitality must perform calculations for LT Bicycle Facilities for both regular building occupants and peak visitors. Based on this (although it is not very clear in the credit language) I am assuming LEED is now requiring hotels to take into account the hotel guests as a part of the regular building occupant calculations, so they can no longer be excluded. I hope that helps!