Friday, May 18, 2012

Adventures in Bike Parking

So it's Bike to Work Day, but there's not much going on in Salem, it seems, to observe it. A single tweet from Cherriots is the only thing to register. (Is your workplace doing anything?)

Trip-end facilities - parking, storage, even showers - are very real barriers. Here's some recent parking observations. Do you know of other new parking installations, especially good ones or bad ones?

Recently I had to go out to ODOT Region 2 headquarters to pick up some River Crossing materials. There was what looked like a WPA-era building! Nothing fancy, but with pleasing art deco-y touches.

But no visible bike parking near the front!

In back was an essentially unusable comb rack - out of date and too close the wall.

A bikey acquaintence directed me to the far back of the parking lot, where there was another comb rack.

Apparently between buildings A and B there's an installation of staple racks, but for a visitor unfamiliar with the lot and disposition of buildings, there was nothing to direct me there, and it wasn't visible as I wandered the parking lot.

In the last couple of weeks I've also seen a nice staple rack at Gamberetti's, in plain sight of the diners - but open to the elements. The parking structure provides a large overhang, so the decision to place one there is interesting. Perhaps it is not related to the change in restaurant operators and came to be for some other reason. Does anyone know?

The new Pizza Hut on South Commercial has a horribly cheap comb rack in the bark dust.

And on a very happy note, here's a lovely retro pair of bikes downtown on a warm night!

2 comments:

Curt said...

The rack in front of Gambretti's is a new addition. Much better than locking our family's fleet to the staircase. New racks have popped up in front of the Salem Center @ Chemeketa and Liberty too. I do feel that things are improving in this area.

Anonymous said...

There is no bike rack at the DMV office on Center Street. Even Sports Authority across the parking lot has none. You can buy a bike there but not securely park one.