Portland is installing lots of bike corrals lately and I know locally Dozen tried to get one installed in front of their shop.
What do people think of bike corrals? I think they are great and further establish bikes as a real form of transportation, help de-clutter sidewalks and enhance sidewalk seating.
One obvious location is Regent Square, there are five restaurants on Braddock that have seating right on the road, no bike racks and lots of bike and pedestrian traffic.
Yeah, if an area regularly gets lots of bikes why not. D's seems to get bikes all over the place pretty often.
i think one on craig in front of kiva han would work great. there's always a lack of bike parking on craig
I think one could work on Forbes in Sq Hill by the bike shops and cafe.
I think they're an excellent idea. FWIW, it is technically legal to park your bike on the street at any angle to the curb. I leave it up to the fine minds here to figure out how to make it practical.
can you imagine how pissed someone would be if you took up a whole parking space for one bike?
what would bumper bike do? and what would a motorist do to bumper bike?
Heh, I think people would be pissed enough if we replaced just 1 parking spot with room for 8 bikes. Do you think the average cyclist would use them?
As far as the neighborhoods discussed, there is and will always be a deficit of parking spaces. I believe a case can be made by the business owners to their elected officials that:
1. there are too many bikes attached to meters, trees and garbage cans that inhibit the flow of pedestrians in areas with narrow sidewalks - like Regent Square and many neighborhood business districts in Pittsburgh.
2. 1 car parking space can reasonably contain 10 bikes. That's at least twice as many people (assuming the car contains 5 people), which can frequent the businesses near the bike parking.
Assuming the car actually has five people in it is very generous. I would be more willing to say that a corral could fit up to five times as many people.
Not to mention that a bike locked to a parking meter is asking to be stolen....
A few thoughts:
1. motorcycles do it, so why not bikes? It would make a nice little Critical Mass demonstration, and would be completely lawful. I'd want some printed flyers explaining a motivation and a concrete goal, and a whole lot of video cameras. Probably a police escort too :(
2. I think you'll find that the Regent Square businesses would be very much in favor. Automotive traffic is already maxed out.
3. It's worth talking to the Fire Department. Two corrals on either side of a fire hydrant would do a good job of prevent motorists from blocking access to it.
4. You know what's not legal to leave parked on the street? Lawn chairs.
motorcycles do it, so why not bikes? Once construction is completed on carson, parking bikes in the spaces in front of OTB would make for a nice bookend to the motorcycles outside Jack's down on 10th street...
4. You know what's not legal to leave parked on the street? Lawn chairs.
haha
WWBBD
that's what would bumper bike do
I'll give you the trademark, erok. As long as, I receive some royalties from all mug, teddy bear and thong sales at Cafe Press.
this guys going to show up in every thread for the rest of the summer
and that rules
This thread needs to get in Port Authority's face. This is part of the solution they need to get in their collective heads: That the city is going to need a crapload more bike-storage capacity than it has now, and that Port Authority needs to be, if not leading the charge, then in the front of the crowd, yelling.
Yes, corrals. Lots of them.
Could someone try to explain to me why erok's hypothetical motorist would be pissed off by a bike parked in the street, but not by a lawn chair?
Not that I disagree with erok, just wish I could figure people out.
<i>...just wish I could figure people out.</i>
lemme know how that goes...good luck!
Well, people are annoyed by chairs blocking spaces, but there is no space saving advocacy group fighting for their rights. It's a car vs. bike thing. Drivers are annoyed by bike riders for some reason.
But nobody would dare touch a lawn chair. Or shout at somebody about it. So maybe the way to handle erok's fear of pissed-off motorists is to strap a lawn chair to your bike and park *both* of them together in the parking space.
Just for completeness, paint the lawn chair black and gold.
I think there is a book about the chairs of the South Side, but darn if I can find it.
Nice bumper bike though.
i would venture to say that the lawn chair represents another driver, and the person looking for the spot sympathizes with their problem.
Right, and the driver sees a bike corral with two bikes and thinks, what a waste, I could be parking there. When in reality that spot wouldn't be there because it would be full with another car.
The local Regent Square residents would be all for a bike corral.
I am SO looking forward to seeing bumper bike guy. I'm going to start carrying my camera around all the time in case we cross paths.
I think the lawn chairs are some kind of a territorial claim. I'm pretty sure that nobody dares to put a lawn chair in front of their neighbor's house, and if someone did, the neighbor would probably remove it. But what about street-cleaning day? I guess you just have to take your lawn chair indoors. And in some neighborhoods, there might be multiple units with only a single car-length of "curb frontage", so the territory is kind of vague.
Now, I must admit that I've never seen a lawn chair in a commercial district, but I think that many of the conflicts between motorists and cyclists boil down to notions of territory. And so many of the proposed solutions are basically attempts to define some boundaries of "bicycle territory."
Imagine if we could just take territory by peeing on it. That intersection of Liberty and Main would be a huge pissing match.
In the end we would win because we care more.
or the oil dries up.
disclaimer: i've been reading kunstler's long emergency
The City has received a few requests for corrals, and many people in the City's administration are interested. At this point, the City is evaluating areas for a pilot program. Please send your suggestions for corral locations or any bicycle issue, to me at stephen.patchan@city.pittsburgh.pa.us as well as the Mayor's 311 center.
I saw Kunstler speak in person a few years ago. Scary stuff.
i believe the idea behind the chair-in-parking-space thing was to save a space that you "earned". people are parked on a narrow street, there's a snowstorm, a plow buries their car in, and they spend two hours digging it out. they then feel as though they've earned the right to that space, since they're the ones who put all the effort into it. thus, they claim it with a chair. and others respect it because they have to go through it as well.
and now, it's just a thing.
additionally, this is still my favorite description of driving around here:
http://www.cs.cmu.edu/afs/cs/user/gwp/www/burghdriving.html
"Pittsburgh is the only place you can go from Point-A to Point-B, making fifteen consecutive lefts, and never cross your path. On the other hand, there are a few roads which manage to cross themselves. It is unwise to attempt to go around the block to get back to a turn you missed; you may end up in Pottsville."
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