Bike Parking an Afterthought at the International Institute
St. Louis’ International Institute serves thousands of new immigrants each year. Unfortunately, it seems these new Americans adopt cars for transportation just like the rest of us.
A few years back when the International Institute redid their building on South Grand they forgot more than just windows. They forgot a bike rack.
They do have a rack — well somewhat. They have the tired old “dish drainer” type rack, one of the worst. It was clearly an afterthought (nothing pre-planned should be done this poorly).
When I was biking home yesterday on Grand I spotted this bike locked to the rack. I’m not sure if it belongs to their staff or a client.
The owner only locked the front wheel to the rack. This bike doesn’t have quick release hubs so you’d need a wrench to undue the front wheel to steal the bike. The lock the owner uses is good — a short cable loop. But, due to the poor design of this rack the owner cannot use the rack and lock properly. One must be compromised. I personally would have taken one side of the rack or the end and locked the frame to the rack.
The rack is halfway into their planting space despite a large area of concrete at the building entrance (which faces their parking lot rather than the street).
Anytime you’ve got a dish drain bike rack sitting in a planting bed locked to a lamp post with a rusty chain you send the message that bike parking isn’t very important.
– Steve
I’ve used this bike rack before. I locked my frame to the end of the rack. I thought about just taking my bike inside with me, but since they have a rack, I figured the security guard would tell me to use it. Everyone I was meeting with thought it was rather remarkable that I rode my bike because it was cold outside, which I thought was pretty funny because I live only about a mile away from the Institute. One person offered to give me a ride home.
Has this blog been renamed to bikingreviewstl?? Just wondering.
Leave him alone — it’s national bike month.
http://www.bikemonth.com/
I work at the Institute and use the bike rack regularly. It works just fine for me. The dish drain bike rack was most likely a donation, as many of our facilities, and we here at the Institute “make due” with what we have. The money we could spend on a fancier bike rack are more appropriately spent on providing a cot and dishes for a newly arrived refugee. But if you know and organization that would donate a better bike rack, we would be very happy to receive one.
[REPLY – Well I understand the issue of donations and making due. When the II redid the builing and poured all new sidewalks that would have been the time to install a $99 bike rack. The lesson here is the time to consider a bike rack is during the modeling stage because once a facility is up and running it is difficult to find the funds for a proper rack. – Steve]