Bravo to Cllr Pete Fry for helping to preserve thousands of practical bike parking spaces. From The Sun:
In a motion being presented to council next Tuesday, Fry said the city was transitioning to digital multi-space parking meters that could not be used to secure a bike.
As a result, the motion states, bike riders in the city would lose a huge number of bike-locking spots.
“Parking meters have served as ubiquitous and useful ad hoc cycling infrastructure in the form of a durable street furniture that is usually well located and in clear view of shopping and community destination,” Fry wrote in the motion. …
Fry wrote that the city would retrofit 2,000 of the old parking meters with ring racks — leaving the post in place — and that the old meterheads and remaining posts would be recycled or donated to other municipalities.
He said the retrofit would take three years, while the new meters would be installed within two years, and that more needed to be done to create more lockup spaces for bikes.
PT reader Dean also asks: “Why can we not get the bike parking moved off the sidewalk on to the street? It seems so simple and would make huge difference.”
What a wonderful idea!
If it moved on-street, presumably the city would want to monetize it and bike parking might no longer be free as it would be taking up a parking spot that could be rented… Though on busy, narrow sidewalks the ability to maximize space for pedestrians would be appreciated.
I do support the conversion of old parking meters into bike racks though – there is a definite dearth of areas to lock up bikes across the city, and often when provided by private development/business they are the horrendous coat hanger style. If we’re serious about biking as transportation option (not just recreational riding, but riding for errands, etc) then we need dramatically more spaces to lock them up properly in close proximity to everyday destinations.
I brought this up to the folks at HUB last year. They really should have been part of the meter replacement plan from the start as I’ve been finding less and less meters to lock to over the past year.