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More Thoughts on Bike Parking

November 30, 2012 Bicycling, Featured, Parking 2 Comments

Tuesday’s post was  about a bike locked to a lamp post while two empty bike were further from the building entry, see: Locate Bike Racks Near Building Entrances. Today is a similar post about trying to find a place to secure your bike.

ABOVE: Three bikes recently spotted locked to the construction fence at Washington Ave & Tucker.

Transportation cyclists are resourceful types for sure and the above is a perfect example. While this makes an interesting visual I’d much rather see our streets lined with bare-bones inverted-U bike racks located on the outer edge of the sidewalks, near the entrances to active spaces.

ABOVE: Bike parking for 22 bikes located around the corner from the nearest entrance to the Laurel Apartments. Architects love this design even though it doesn’t support the bike’s frame in two places when used as designed

Unfortunately too often things like bike parking are on a green checklist and they get checked off as being covered even though functionally few cyclists will ever use the supplied racks, much less 22 at once, opting instead for a sign or lamp post near their destination.  This space should’ve been planted to catch water runoff.

– Steve Patterson

  • JZ71

    Pretty much agree, with one added thought – back when I was commuting by bike in Denver, my favorite parking spot was a poorly designed, fence-type, bike rack located in a parking garage, half a block away from where I worked. Why? Because it was under cover (not on the sidewalk) and it was next to the attendant’s booth (visual surveillance). The reality is that if you bike several miles each way, proximity to the entrance is less important than confidence that your bike and all its accessories will be there when you want to ride home. And the reason why the Laurel’s bike parking is not well used is probably similar – if I lived there, I wouldn’t park there, I’d be bringing my bike into my apartment, for the same reasons, out of the weather and better security! But yes, that’s one of my pet peeves with the whole LEED process. Putting the “right” stuff in the wrong locations, where it can never function properly, does very little to “save the planet”, it just becomes stupid window dressing . . . .

  • http://www.facebook.com/people/Scott-Jones/1611723632 Scott Jones

    I agree that the best place for bike parking is in front of the building, in front of entrances along the sidewalk. One of the benefits of having it here is that it creates another buffer between pedestrians and traffic making people feel safer to walk. Also, it keeps the bike in view of the pedestrians making it less likely that someone is going to come with bolt cutters or something. One cool thing I’ve seen in Madison is the city replacing a parking spot with a bike rack (ones that support the bike frame in two places) bolted into the asphalt. They do that in high traffic bike areas but only during the summer.

    One sad thing I noticed in STL is that the Delmar Loop has almost no bike parking. That’s something worth following up on.

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