Definition of Short term and Long Term bike storage

Hi Alanna,
Short-term bike storage spaces are spaces located within 100 feet of any main entrance of the building. Short-term spaces are determined by the peak number of visitors to the building and are meant for building visitors who will use the space for 2 hours or less. LEED requires short-term spaces be provided for 2.5% of peak visitors with a minimum of 4 short-term spaces.

Long-term spaces are storage spaces located within 100 feet of any functional entry. These spaces must be covered and available to all regular building occupants. LEED requires long-term spaces must be provided for 5% of regular building occupants with a minimum of 4 spaces.

Note the regular building occupants, or FTE, and visitors can be found using the C&S Appendix in the Reference Guide.

For example, lets say we have a building with 1,000 regular building occupants and 250 peak visitors. The project would need to provide 7 short-term bike storage spaces (250 x 2.5% rounded up) and 50 long-term bike storage spaces (1,000 x 5%). The 7 short-term spaces could be located in front of the building near the main entrance, and the 50 long-term spaces could be added to the parking garage near the elevator or stairs, which would also ensure they are covered.

Hope that helps!

Hi Alanna,
To pursue this credit at least 4 short-term and 4 long-term spaces must be provided, so there cannot be zero short-term spaces provided. Depending on how many FTE there are in the building, GBCI will want the building to take into account how many transients the building is likely to see everyday (although the C&S appendix says zero, all office buildings are expected to have some visitors). A good rule of thumb for calculating peak transients is ~10% of FTE. You can use this to determine how many short-term spaces to provide beyond the required four.

Hi Kimberly,

Doing my homework for this credit and so I thought I'd check the boards here for any additional information. I notice you mention above (first comment, your original response) that "Long-term spaces are storage spaces located within 100 feet of any functional entry. These spaces must be covered and available to all regular building occupants."
Where is this requirement for 'covered spaces' coming from? I cannot find such language in the V4 reference guide (printed or updated online version), nor in CIRs/Interpretations. I know it used be a requirement for residential buildings under V3/2009, but from what I see this has not been carried over to V4.
Am I missing a source of information?
Many thanks for your input on these threads.

Hi Julia, it is stated under the definitions section (see long term bike storage definition) at the end of the credit.

Ooh! After re-reading the reference guide 1,000 times, I realize the requirement for covered long-term parking is only mentioned in the Healthcare, Case 2. Residential Projects section (pg 102). So, while I think there is a better way to have stated this requirement in the definition, the covered requirement does not appear to apply to all project types/situations. I'm going confirm GBCI and will post responses here.

Hi Michelle,

Though LEEDuser is apparently moderating my post on this from the other thread, covered is actually mentioned in the online reference guide under the submittal tips for commercial and institutional projects.

Hello, 

For a mixed use building (commercial and residential), I was wondering what is the minimum number of short term bicycle storage spaces, would it be 4 storage spaces for each use (totalling to 8 storage spaces for building) or a total of 4 short term storage spaces for the whole building?

Thanks in advance

The number of spaces required is based on peak visitors and regular building occupants. The reference guide clearly states that Case 3. mixed-use projects must "meet the Case 1 and Case 2 storage requirements for the nonresidential and residential portions of the project, respectively." Check the reference guide and calculate based on each building use.