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Bike corrals: on-street bike parking hits San Francisco (and Durango?)
A crowded bike rack | flickr user phlyingpenguin
Recently, my complex doubled the amount of bike parking available on my side of the building. That parking immediately filled up with bikes. My guess is that if they knocked out another car parking spot, yet another 12-24 bikes would materialize and be parked there — bikes that people are currently storing on their balconies or in their kitchens or wherever else.
Think about that as a business. If your business is located somewhere with very limited parking — let’s say, downtown Boulder — would you rather have one car parked outside or 12 bikes? The safe bet is that 12 customers are better than however many fit in that hypothetical car. (Needless to say, you’re making the automobile parking situation just a touch worse by making the switch.)
Maybe that’s why San Francisco is moving ahead with on-street bike parking, according to the Bay Citizen:
They’re called bike corrals – racks bolted into the street, using a spot that typically would go to a vehicle. This month a handful of corrals popped up in the city, like the one on Valencia at 22nd Street outside insanely popular Boogaloos restaurant.
A bike corral in Portland, Ore. | flickr user BikePortland.org
Bike corrals are already used in Portland, Ore. There, they’ve got blue bike corrals, uniformly painted, Ryan Van Duzer says writing for elephant, so they settle into citizens’ minds as municipal structures. Business owners can petition the city and ask for a bicycle corral near their business.
Locally, The Cup has been advocating for these. Kind of a lot. They’re talking about bike corrals on Twitter (check that link for a pic of a bike corral in Durango) and they’ve got a bike corral primer [PDF] on their site, which says:
Bike corrals give bikes a designated place, acknowledge their importance (which cyclists appreciate) and clear the sidewalk. Shop owners like the extra traffic, and have been known to pay for their installation.
What are they?
Basically elongated bike racks, corrals can be installed in a parking space, where they allow 12 to 14 vehicles to park instead of one. The fixed element is often a staggered series of upside down U-shapes (or “staples”) or a metal spiral, though there’s no reason they couldn’t be more imaginative. The City of Portland paints the fixtures all blue, making them recognizable to users as city structures. Corrals themselves cost around $1,000. Labor and additions for stability and safety may bring the total to $3,000 to $4,000.
Here’s a photo of a temporary and very unofficial bike corral in Los Angeles, where an official bike corral program was just approved in April:
"There was no special occasion for the installation of LA's first parking corral - only the brutal necessity of a bike repair collective and the need to keep the sidewalk relatively clear during operating hours. This corral appears temporarily in half a car parking space in front of the Bike Oven most evenings these days. Ramon Martinez deserves the credit for this excellent idea." | photo and caption: flickr user ubrayj02
Where would you put ‘em?
[The Bay Citizen via Urban Velo]
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[...] If you’re surprised by them, check out other cities that have been building and using bike corrals. [...]
the thing i love about bike racks is that they keep your bicycle secure in one place against thieves~:-
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