Midtown needs bike parking
Bike parking throughout our region is severely lacking. You can somewhat excuse the auto-centric edges for not having bike parking but in the urban core biking is more common and places to secure bikes are necessary.
As midtown (aka Grand Center) becomes a more popular place to dine and shop seeing bikes locked to lamp posts, street signs and parking meters will become increasingly common. Locking to a lamp post requires a long cable rather than a more common u-lock. Bike racks need to be planned.
– Steve Patterson
I totally agree, Midtown and Covenant Blu/Grand Center both need more racks. There is one at the Centene Center for Arts & Education on Olive. If my memory serves me, there is no bike rack at Strauss Park either, which is a major missed opportunity, as it's a beautiful little spot to enjoy.
Why do we need entire racks when we can install these and create jobs:
http://www.toronto.ca/cycling/postandring.htm
Maybe Cash's Scrap Metal can find us a cheap way to get the material?
Chicago has a good guide: http://egov.cityofchicago.org/webportal/COCWebP…
And a comprehensive look at the issue can be found here: http://www.bicyclinginfo.org/engineering/parkin…
Finally, back in the 1990's, Denver installed u-shaped bike parking racks on many parking meters downtown. I never saw many being used; instead most cyclists just used a u-lock around the meter post itself.
My experience, as a cyclist, is that a lack of parking really isn't an issue – I can almost always find something substantial to lock my bike to, and I have a commuter bike that's pretty “low profile” and doesn't look like it's worth stealing. The two bigger challenges I face are our wonderful weather and some of the motorists I have to share the road with. Drenched in sweat doesn't go well with either shopping or socializing, and living in fear for my life from either some p-o'ed redneck or, more likely, a clueless texter, are both much bigger hurdles for using my bike more here . . .
Bikes on meters can present challenges for some of us. Bike parking is also suggestive. So biking in the summer is not for you, it is for many others.
Tomorrow night's World Naked Bike Ride will be more suggestive, and I doubt if sweat will be an issue 😉
http://blogs.riverfronttimes.com/dailyrft/2010/…
Or maybe we just need better bikes: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-…