> keeping the public right-of-way clear for public use
Plenty of railway stations (plenty of streets!) surround themselves with car parking, which is a much less efficient use of space compared with bicycle parking.
Here [1] is above the underground Nørreport station in Copenhagen. Not the main station, but the second busiest. Lots of designated bicycle parking, but the latent demand is probably higher than what's available. At some point, the hassle of finding a place to leave the bicycle outweighs the delay with simply walking through the city centre, just like driving a car.
"Nuisance" bicycles get damaged, so there's pressure not to leave them in the way. In the proper bike rack, or within an area of bike racks, or leaning against a building, seems to count as a proper area. Anywhere else, the bike might get knocked over and not righted. Then the wheels end up tacoed.
But really, for any city that isn't Copenhagen or Amsterdam, converting some car parking spaces into 8-10 bicycle spaces each should leave plenty of room for bicycles.
So that might work for some cities. In Chicago, where I live, the open space surrounding most train stations is literally just the sidewalk. A few train stations also serve as hubs for the buses, and those have enough space for that amount of bike storage, but they're a definite minority.
I'm not familiar with Chicago, but do you mean a street like this [1], under Carl/Lake station? It has two lanes given over to parking cars, plus a parking garage in one of the buildings.
At Nørreport [2], there is no car parking, except a taxi rank for three taxis.
A little further away from the city centre, at Forum metro station [3], there is a little car parking, but still plenty of space for bicycles.
There are counterexamples — parts of London or Rome, for example, although these areas are often so compact that there's little reason to leave 500+ bicycle in one place.
Plenty of railway stations (plenty of streets!) surround themselves with car parking, which is a much less efficient use of space compared with bicycle parking.
Here [1] is above the underground Nørreport station in Copenhagen. Not the main station, but the second busiest. Lots of designated bicycle parking, but the latent demand is probably higher than what's available. At some point, the hassle of finding a place to leave the bicycle outweighs the delay with simply walking through the city centre, just like driving a car.
"Nuisance" bicycles get damaged, so there's pressure not to leave them in the way. In the proper bike rack, or within an area of bike racks, or leaning against a building, seems to count as a proper area. Anywhere else, the bike might get knocked over and not righted. Then the wheels end up tacoed.
But really, for any city that isn't Copenhagen or Amsterdam, converting some car parking spaces into 8-10 bicycle spaces each should leave plenty of room for bicycles.
[1] https://pricetags.files.wordpress.com/2015/07/norreport-5.jp...