Forum discussion
NC-2009 SSc4.2: Alternative Transportation—Bicycle Storage and Changing Rooms
If a college student union building has 3300 peak transient users, do we need to supply bike racks for 5% = 165?? That seems excessive. Ours is a LEED 2009 project, so CIRs no longer act as precedent.
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Does LEED have any requirements on spacing or the type of bike racks used? What about security?
Are there specific requirements for the changing rooms, such as size?
Do bike racks have to be within the LEED project boundary?
Is a general storage room that is accessible to residents acceptable for covered bike storage?
Do I round up or down? What if the calculations show that I need 0.5 showers?
Mara Baum
Partner, Architecture & SustainabilityDIALOG
674 thumbs up
January 27, 2010 - 9:11 pm
I would say not only that yes, you do, but also yes, you probably should. 165 bike racks may sound like a lot, but so does 3300 users. College students are often more likely to travel by bike than are people in the general population. If this is not the case on the campus you're working for, then perhaps this isn't the best credit to pursue.
Keep in mind that bike racks can be within 200 yards of any usable building entry, which can include existing bike racks at nearby buildings. (Using those bike racks means that they can't be counted towards other LEED projects on campus.)
Also, don't forget to include FTEs in addition to the transient users. They will require shower facilities in or near the building; the transient users do not.
Chris DeVolder
360 Architecture22 thumbs up
May 7, 2013 - 5:33 pm
Mara,
I agree, but for a college campus where the peak transient number is high specific to students (union, auditorium, sports event where a dedicated number of tickets is reserved for students, other student oriented events on campus) why would there not be credit for a certain % of the population always walking?
Most students who go to the union/other examples live very close (i.e. across the street/quad) and will never ride their bikes a short distance.
Maybe the 5% accounts for it, but campus seems to be a different scenario where a much higher % of people are walking compared to car/transit/bikes.
I look foward to others' thoughts.
David Posada
Integrated Design & LEED SpecialistSERA Architects
LEEDuser Expert
1980 thumbs up
May 8, 2013 - 5:05 pm
If the peak transient number is a realistic estimate of the maximum number of people in the building at fairly typical "peak" moment, then the 5% seems appropriate for many campus settings. Every campus is different, but for many schools the student union building gets a lot of use by students who don't live on campus, and thus are often biking from the surrounding area.
Sometimes people make the mistake of using the maximum occupancy allowed by the building code to get their peak transient number. This isn't recommended, as it tends to over-estimate the number of people who would be in the building at the typical busiest time, such as lunch hour.