bad ass bike rack
Bike rack in a shopping plaza parking lot, Columbia, SC.
Ninth Street
The Outspokin’ Cyclist: Don’t fret, downtown getting bike racks
Phillip Barron
The Herald Sun
Durham Rising brought a lot of people downtown on Saturday — 12,000 by some estimates. A surprising (yes, even to me) number of those folks were cyclists. So, if you walked around downtown at all that day, you surely had to step around some of their bikes. There wasn’t a lamp-post, street sign, or sapling that didn’t have a bike chained to it. Outside Bull McCabe’s, the new Irish pub replacing Jo and Joe’s, signs and lamp-posts secured two and three bikes a piece.
Where were the bike racks?
I left downtown that day feeling disgusted, and no, it wasn’t from gorging on Locopops.
The city of Durham spent more than sixteen million dollars on its Downtown Improvements project as the civic investment in re-energizing downtown. They developed a new central plaza, realigned streets, and marked pedestrian crossings with stamped brick designs. But no bike racks? I was incredulous.
Turns out, bike racks were on their way. They just weren’t installed yet.
Hopefully, you’ve been back downtown since June. As of the end of August, one city program installed bike racks downtown, and one will continue to install them throughout Durham.
First, the streetscape project did include bike racks; they simply couldn’t be installed by the Durham Rising event. Ed Venable of the City says that bike racks were installed in eight locations in July. See them outside the Professional Center, the Empowerment Center, and the CCB Plaza among other spots inside the loop.
Second, the CityRacks program secured funding from the state and federal governments to install bike racks all over Durham. Under a Congestion Mitigation for Air Quality (CMAQ — often pronounced see-mack) Improvement Program, Durham will be installing bike racks all over the city. CityRacks, as the CMAQ funded program is called, will install “inverted U” bicycle racks on city-owned property. Look for them to start popping up this fall.
There’s a common story told on many college campuses (whether myth or fact doesn’t matter) about how it was decided where sidewalks should go. It usually goes something like this. Suppose you want to lay out a campus, and you want to put in sidewalks only where the students will use them. The best way is to wait a few years to see what pathways the students wear into the lawn, and put the sidewalks there, because those are the pathways students use to get from building to building. Otherwise you’ll have sidewalks, and then you’ll have pathways across the lawn where the students actually walk.
The CityRacks program takes a similar strategy with bike racks. By letting citizens (cyclists) request where racks should go, the City ends up installing racks where they will be used.
Dale McKeel, the city’s new Bicycle and Pedestrian Transportation planner, says that the first bike racks were installed downtown in August at locations selected more than a year ago. Before the 2007 year is out, a total of sixty seven racks will be installed at parks, commercial districts, museums, universities, and libraries. For those of us cyclists, that means we will no longer have to lock a bike to a No-Parking sign outside Brightleaf or Ninth St.
Piedmont Parks, Inc. of Greensboro won the $48,000 contract to install the racks, and the upside-down U design was chosen by the Durham Bicycle and Pedestrian Advisory Commission, who says this style bike rack is the most secure.
In 2008, the City Racks program will focus on installing bike racks at public schools throughout Durham. And in 2009, the public will again be invited to request bike racks at locations around Durham.
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Jim Reingruber, using Google Maps, has started a website noting all of Durham’s bike racks — at least, all the ones he can find. Check it out at http://www.durhambikeracks.com/
For the full list of all planned bike rack locations, see the pdf available at http://www.durhamnc.gov/departments/works/bikerack_form.cfm
functionless bollards
why couldn’t these have been bike racks?
bike rack with built-in air pump
Now this is a smart idea — a bike rack with built-in air pump. First spotted over at cycling edinburgh.
I’ll find out whether any of Durham’s new bike racks will (or can) include one of these.
Durham to install hundreds of new bike racks
From the City of Durham’s website:
CityRacks is a bicycle parking program, which will install “inverted U” bicycle racks on city-owned property throughout the City of Durham. Sites are selected by taking into account density of bike traffic. These areas will most likely include parks, schools, business districts, universities, museums, and libraries.
* Sidewalk or walk area much be at least 8′ in width to prevent walkways from being blocked by bikes attached to bike racks.
* Bike racks must be installed approximately 13′ from fire hydrants, and 15′ from bus stop shelters and newsstands.
* Racks would preferably not be installed on brick/pavers, stone/slate or patterned concrete.
* Area must not be in a direct walkway entrance from a commercial business.
* Location should be in a high traffic biking area in order to accommodate as many bikers at possible.
* Area of location should be on city property and not under private ownership.
* Dimensions of the inverted “U” shaped racks are:
If you’d like to request that a bike rack be installed near a business you frequent or other destination, just fill out a Bike Rack Request Form online.
Let’s hope ours fare better than Toronto’s.
Toronto’s post-and-ring bike racks are “vulnerable”
Editorial: Repair the bike locks
The Toronto Star
Aug. 21, 2006. 01:00 AMToronto is a city of bicyclists, who strive to save the air and the roads while adroitly dodging motorists and ever-rising gas and parking prices.
So it is disconcerting to learn those ubiquitous post and ring bike stands that have dotted the city for 20 years are vulnerable to breaking with a simple two-by-four piece of lumber.
Eight cases of attacks on the stands by lumber-wielding thieves have been confirmed and another six are under investigation,
Even red-faced city biking officials have had to admit after conducting their own destructive attacks that the $200 stands are “vulnerable.”
City officials are looking at ways to strengthen or modify the 16,000 bike lock-ups, but warn that all the options are relatively expensive.
Individual cyclists can thwart thieves by using two hefty locks and the techniques on how best to use them that are outlined in a 20-page city booklet. But that is a confusing and costly alternative.
What should be done is that the city spend the money to fix the stands.
In a city where an estimated 7,000 bikes are stolen every year, the price is a good investment.
News and video from Martino’s Bike Lane Diary.
TCC Ring Post Sub-committee on VimeoDurham will be installing new city-owned bike racks later this year. I’m glad we chose not to go with the post-and-ring design, even if they are more aesthetically interesting that upside-down U’s.
CHANGE
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