Business community seeks flexibility in bike parking rules (updated)

These bike racks shaped like an upside-down U are cheap, but don't work well. So are you supposed to lean your frame on the metal? What if you have a nice bike that you don't want scratched? Are you expected to have a kick stand? I have seen cyclists try to lean their rear wheels on this type of rack. The bikes slide out. What ever happened to the style of rack which has a slot you slide a rear wheel into?

Dear businesses, If your bike rack is out of sight of the entrance of your store I will not use it. I will bring my bike inside instead. If you refuse to let me in your store with my bike I will go else where. Miguel

As an example of what I was saying yesterday, last night I met up with some friends for a beer at the Claim Jumper on Broadway - in the very back of the restaurant, in the exact opposite corner of the entrance, there is a single inverted U rack and three lockers, all three in unused condition and all locked empty with identical padlocks, the kind that you buy as a set all keyed alike. Now I'm just guessing here, but since this is such a common sight in this town, I'll bet that the installation of the lockers is a condition of getting the variance that allows them to hide the bike parking away where it won't offend the tender sensibilities of their "normal" customers, but the variance only covers installation, without requiring that the business actually make them available for use. And true to what I said about locking up in any high public visibility area regardless of proximity, I chose to lock up to the always excellent post-n-loops set in concrete next to the entrance of the Target across the parking lot as a safer alternative. Now if CJ had their bolt-down inverted-U within 30ft of the door I might have used it, but since there wasn't much customer traffic while we were there, it may have *still* been safer to lock up to the better spot at Target. And yeah - parking at that Alberson's is like parking in a solar oven. The bike is always hotter there than in the sun elsewhere; must be the reflection off the wall.

Why can't we have both proximity and quality? Bicycle racks should be: a) as close to the main entrance of the store as possible; b) shaded from the sun*; and c) of a good design, like those racks around the University Businesses, even established ones, should not be able to exempt themselves from creating decent bicycle parking. Imagine if every business had the right to ask for an exemption from new health or labor laws that come up. It would be anarchy. This is something that companies need to just get over as a cost of doing business in the city. And if a business can't afford to put in a decent bike rack in a suitable location then they probably won't last long as an enterprise anyway. * See the Albertson's market on Wilmot and 22nd. They have a shaded area for shopping cart storage, but the crappy bike rack they have is right in the middle of a sunny sidewalk.

Distance is more key to bike parking usage than the quality of bike parking fixture. Bicyclists prefer to use an easily removable sign pole that is closer to final destination than lock to a permanent bike rack further away.I've written about distance parking many times:http://www.stevevance.net/planning/bike-parking-phenomenon-a/http://www.stevevance.net/planning/successful-bike-parking/http://project.stevevance.net/bike_parking_phenomenon_a

I still vote for 50 feet even with the updates to this post. 120 feet is called a nice head start. Where are the bike racks at Home Depot? I always lock up to the carriage corral thing. Also, there are vertical bike lockers that homeless people can't sleep in and that u-lock idea is a great idea.

Home Depot, some grocery stores and Borders Books, I think that's who we're talking about. Why can't they have bike racks out front? Many of them can put in a bike corral right in front of the store. Really tho, they need to start thinking about us cyclists from the beginning stages of their architectural and landscape planning. It's cheaper and better to design racks in from the beginning. The hardship cases are caused by forcing business owners now to fix the sins of business owners in the past. Retrofitting bike racks to places where they hadn't been given proper design priority before can be expensive. However, bike corrals should work well in many locations, even some shopping centers. The "cost" of bike corrals is they are highly visible and remove one or two car parking spaces. The most challenging situation would be in a shopping center with a traffic lane that runs right along the storefront sidewalk. Since there are no parking spaces right in front of these stores, the traffic lane would have to be re-routed around a bike corral. That could be very expensive. Those drug stores with the corner entrances - they didn't give us cyclists any thought at all, did they? Since they don't value you, you may not want to give them your money. As for putting a rack distant from a store entrance - every foot further out is another foot you're giving to the guy who's stealing your bike as a head start.

I think the issue with flexibility is who is reviewing/approving the exceptions. It sounds like exceptions have been approved in the past too easily, resulting in rack locations that were counter to the intent of the 50-foot rule. I'm not fond of 1 size fits all regulations, but if developers take advantage of the flexibility, there's really no point in having the regulation.

Bike boxes are a great idea on paper, but tend to go unused for their intended purpose mostly because they require a different type of lock than most cyclists normally carry. As a result they either become de-facto homeless camps and get trashed, or the businesses tire of constantly cleaning/fixing them and just lock them up perpetually empty. It's a shame because it would take only a slight modification on most of them to allow use of either a padlock *or* U-lock, but the bike box suppliers apparently don't offer it. Personally I'm good with any place to lock up that is in *any* high public visibility area nearby - it seems a little silly to be willing to ride a bike 5-10 miles to get there, to then stress about having to walk an extra 70ft to the door.

What is less long time storage? I love bike lockers. I wouldn't mind walking more than 50 feet if my bike were in a locker that was free of spiders and debris. You can put your shopping bags in a locker then keep shopping from store to store. I would especially like to see some bike lockers downtown somewhere because I usually park then walk all over, sometimes blocks away. Check out the two stripped bikes between the library and City Hall to see why lockers are better than poles. I vote 50 or lockers. Thanx

The poll could use a bit more clarity. At many CVS and Walgreens, the rack is easy to see from the front door BUT it's all the way at the back corner of the store, about 120 to 150 feet away. This makes it essentially out of sight/out of mind (except to thieves) of store customers coming and going, who's presence can help deter theft. That is why we got the development standards changed five years ago to require the racks to be within 30 feet from the front entrance. The change to 50 feet is actually favorable to a business or other facility. In working with Walgreens, as a prime example of excellent parking we were able to get front-entrance protected parking at the Walgreens on Speedway just east of Country Club. I'd suggest revision of the wording on the "yes" option to point out that a rack can be easy to see but may be up to 120 feet or so away from the front entrance, which many cyclists might not use.