Some city businesses want you to arrive on two wheels, not two feet — and they’ll even give discounts to encourage riding your bike to their door.
Transportation Alternatives is teaming up with more than 100 businesses below 14th Street in Manhattan to give bikers deals and discounts when they roll up to their stores.
The program, called the “Bike Friendly Businesses District,” will be in place in the East Village and Lower East Side and starts this Saturday. There will be an 11 a.m. tour of businesses that are participating, starting at Veselka on 2nd Avenue and 9th Street. The 24-hour Ukranian restaurant is offering a free granola bar for cyclists.
Miller Nuttle, a bike advocate for Transportation Alternatives, said they hope to create more neighborhood bike-discount zones, where businesses have bike-safety information posted and ask the city for things like bike racks.
More than 300 businesses scattered around the city, ranging from hair salons to burger joints, already offer deals, such as up to 15 percent off purchases.
“The district was the next logical step for us, thinking about focusing on New York as a city of neighborhoods,” Nuttle said.
And when the city’s promised bike-share program begins, they hope, tourists will snatch up discounts at the local spots, bringing the businesses a cash boost.
“It’s a program we’d really like to see spread through the city,” he said.
Where you can get a deal on two wheels
Participating restaurants run “the whole gamut,” Nuttle said. “Everything from your local coffee shop to East Village staples, Veselka, the Ukrainian restaurant, to hair and nail salons.”
They also have started partnering with non-profit theaters and galleries. Discounts can include anything from 10 to 15 percent off or buy-one, get-one-free specials.
Transportation Alternatives also hopes to create a “dinner-and-a-show” special where cyclists can get discounts off a local restaurant and comedy show.
Some participating businesses in the plan:
Bareburger East Village
Arena Salon
Addiction NYC
Birdbath
Café Grumpy
Cowboy Pizza
Luca Lounge
Rawvolution
