Bring Back The Rack

Imagine a world where cars parked against trees, telephone poles, and handicap railings. Seems absurd doesn’t it? So why then do bikes get the shaft when it comes to ample parking. In a recent Colorado Daily article, Boulder identifies inadequate rack space as a growing concern for the bike community. Bike theft remains Boulder’s number one crime, and without proper space, bikes become vulnerable.

Recently, Fort Collins, in collaboration with New Belgium Brewery, initiated a program which removes parking spaces and inserts bike racks. Fort Collins, like Boulder, maintains a healthy and growing bike community. Bicycle racks revolutionize the parking lot, promoting the two-wheel alternative to travel. A parking spot that once facilitated one car now houses a dozen bikes, Wahoo!!!!

New Belgium’s bright red, stainless steel racks, glisten in the clean Colorado air, encouraging drivers to hang up their keys and start cranking. Boulder needs to follow the Fort’s lead, and start busting out the racks.

Even on Campus bike racks fill to the brim, leaving students to lock their bikes to unlawful spaces like handicap rails or trees. Part of the problem is bike abandonment. Unfortunately, many students arrive on campus, lock their bikes to a rack, and forget their two wheels ever existed. When they return three month later, their bike has a rusty chain and is sitting on its side. Bike abandonment causes nightmares for the parking and transportation service, as well as those who have to watch beautiful new bikes rust through the winter.

The bicycle is not a second class vehicle; we riders pump hard, is it too much to ask for a nice clean rack to lock our frames around? Bicycles take up a tenth of the space as a truck or SUV, if just two parking spaces were removed on Pearl, twenty bikes could have a safe spot to rest their bottom brackets.

Check out what the Daily has to say
http://www.coloradodaily.com/ci_13647252?IADID=Search-www.coloradodaily.com-www.coloradodaily.com