The Observation Deck

dl meckes wrote:And here's something interesting...

Pittsburgh is doing this: Public Art Bike Racks

Over 130 of these new and unique Public Art Bike Racks will be installed around Pittsburgh in the coming months. Each rack will holds two bicycles - one on each side - and are made of solid galvanized steel. Each rack is securely bolted into the pavement.
http://www.bike-pgh.org/index.html

Those have the "Three Rivers" design (logo). The Lakewood logo would make a good bike rack...

This might be something interesting for Lakewood to consider. Maybe having some sort of artist contest to create the best original design for Lakewood bike racks? It would be creative and unique to the city and of course make it easier for all the bikers to travel and lock their bikes up safely.

Virginia Marti / LHS/ St. Ed's student designed civic bike rack project anyone?

Bryan-

You're reading my mind.

LOTS of cities are doing just that!

I'm supposed to be working, but I got so excited whan I started researching art bike rack that I can't concentrate!

DL/Bryan

Let's all take a collective breath. I love the St. Eds and Virgina Marti designs. Perhaps we could get VM or the good Friars to pay for them as well.

Lakewood is a little on the tight side with money right now.

I know that Tim Liston is actively looking for people to get involved in this advocacy group. Raising Funds and awareness are all part of the project. Click on hi PM button and I am sure he can work you into the group that meets right here in another section.


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Certainly the city wouldn't completely pay for it, but what if it helped businesses purchase the racks. Say perhaps subsidizing the cost partly or working out a deal with the artist and manufacturer to get them at cost?

Or maybe even some kind of small tax incentive to have and maintain them. Bikes create much less wear and tear on the roads you know.

Ok, here's a link to Google's image search
http://images.google.com/images?client=safari&rls=en&q=art%20bike%20rack&oe=UTF-8&ie=UTF-8&sa=N&tab=wi

Lots of really wonderful ideas!

Bryan

In a perfect world all of these ideas are really good. But right now Lakewood is not a perfect world. We have some serious money issues.

While some might see this as a problem I do not.

The city is very receptive to civic groups that want to help make a difference. I am sure they would help plan them, install them, even paint and maintain them, but for every penny they have to put towards what could be called "special interests" takes one from somewhere else.

While speaking with Tim I was struck by how much we pay for our bikes yet we turn to the city for the racks. How about a simple bike license? One charge say 1% of the bike value each year or every other year. You could get a lifetime one for 10% of the bike. So if I had a used banana bike I would pay $2.50 for life. On my Trek I would pay $100 for a lifetime pass, or $10.00 for a yearly sticker.

If you had a sticker you could park at any of them for FREE. If no sticker then you would have to pay the meter, or use a tree, no lock, whatever. All money raised would be used only for bike advocacy, racks, events, and safety.

We have to think out of the box.

Those are good suggestions.

The exercise for me today was having my tiny brain take a little trip into imagination land.

No, I didn't do my homework to find out how people or cities or businesses were paying for these racks, but up until today, when I heard bike rack, I thought clunky & ugly. Utilitarian at best. I never thought COOL!

Until today, I did not know what others were doing or that the lowly bike rack could be such a cool, inclusionary art project and city brand-builder.

Thanks to Doug, I am excitedly thinking about bike racks in an entirely new way!

The next questions are more difficult: how will the community pay for an art rack program? Who will come to the table?

If I got this excited about useful and artistic bike racks, can a discussion about other useful public art be far behind?

And while I'm on that subject, the county & the city of Cleveland have done a cool dog art project and installed the dogs all over town. They've printed up a brochure so people may take a dog art tour. Much like the guitar art project. I assume the dogs will be auctioned off, although all I've done so far is to try and see them & try to figure out what they might represent.

Other cities have done tour guides so that people may go around and see all the bike racks.

That would make me thirsty and hungry. I'd have to spend money in the city to eat and drink.

I might even want to shop in an interesting store!

<<<<<<<While speaking with Tim I was struck by how much we pay for our bikes yet we turn to the city for the racks. How about a simple bike license? One charge say 1% of the bike value each year or every other year. You could get a lifetime one for 10% of the bike. So if I had a used banana bike I would pay $2.50 for life. On my Trek I would pay $100 for a lifetime pass, or $10.00 for a yearly sticker. >>>>>>>>>

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!!!!! Even a lot of liberals I know tell me that we already have way too many fees, licenses, permits, taxes, etc.

As far as artistic bike rack gizmos, I think we still need to keep them practical. They don't have to be a carbon copy of Toronto's, but maybe keep them one nice metallic color rather than going wild like they do some places with artistic fire hidrants. just my two cents - I sold my bike earlier this year, anyway, as I am too old.

Doug
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Doug

If someone didn't want to pay or get a sticker they could drop a quarter in the meter, or chain it to a tree or anything but the meter. So it would really just be another way to rasie money and awareness of the walkable/bikeable city going pro active.


What about these units?

We could build them on land grabbed through eminent domain. Of course they would be for sale only, no renters.

I believe you can put almost 50 bikes on each unit.









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These are too cool. I would love to a contest to design and build bike racks. I know that CIA has a sculpture department. But I would think this could be like the bench sale that the Jr. Woman's group had some years ago. Provide various groups with so much metal and then let them come up with something and auction them off.

Good design isn't more expensive than bad design and it would help build the Lakewood Brand as an artistic, enviromentally friendly neo urbanistic city.

Cleveland Public Art not long ago had a contest ( I believe among cia students) to develop bike racks. the results can be found on their website.

http://www.clevelandpublicart.org/

look under "rack attack."

I personally like some of the parking meter attachments posted above better than what's represented in the cia contest.

I think racks need to accomplish two things: one is simply to fill an existing need, which--if you look around town--exists in just a few places. The other, though, is to attract attention and put an idea in people's 6heads. That's why I like the parking meter attachments that have the sillouhette of a bicycle integrated in the design. No question about what that's for. Face it: Unless people get that message, and act on it, bike racks around town would serve a pretty small minority.

The most important piece of infrastructure is interested humans.

I really like the idea of bike racks as public art in addition to the simple concept of putting them on poles. Are there any local artists that anyone knows of that do metalworking? It would enhance the personality of the city, in addition to making it more bike friendly. Similar to pigs or cows of other cities...but with functionality.
There would probably have to be a standard connection detail to the pole. Then beyond that, the artist could do (almost) whatever they wanted to.

Hey I'm back from a weekend in beautiful Defiance, Ohio.

Thanks all of you for digging in. I was gonna start looking at options but you all have pretty well set the table I think. I really like the parking meter attachments. They're functional, versatile, cheap, and don't require messing with concrete.

FYI I do prefer a cable lock for its versatility -- but understand the bike I ride around town I bought used and fixed up, so it's no great loss if it gets stolen. I'll just fix up another one. I would use a U-lock if I cared about it more. My summer commuting bike, on the other hand, I basically don't let it out of my sight. I do think you need the meter attachments so that both us cable lock folks and you U-lock types lock 'em up effectively.

But parking meters don't exist at a lot of potential biking destinations, like the schools and parks for example. So we do need bike racks of some kind or another. I have a couple thoughts. First bike racks should look like someplace to park/lock your bike. I know that sounds obvious but some of the racks look too much like art. And whatever design is chosen should be used exclusively, throughout the city. Part of the idea here is to make biking easier and less intimidating, and part of the idea is to convey the notion that cycling is encouraged in Lakewood. It's an identity thing. For both goals you need to keep it simple.

Has anyone priced the meter attachments? Personally I like the green one with the bike. Very clear what they're for. Michael G. is right about that. Seems like a quick win to me.......

As an avid cyclist who often does chores on my bike, I like where this thread is going. The pictures provided illustrate what I've seen in other cities. The one issue I've always had with the parking meters is that I didn't want to have my bike inconvenience anyone trying to feed the meter and possibly dirty their clothes.

I also hate the lack of stability for my bike locked to a meter. If anyone accidental bumped into it, down it would go scraping all the way. My bike is a bike not Ann Nicole Smith.

These pictures provide flexibility for multiple types of locks and also stability to have a bike resting on something more that just a single pole.

How do we take this to the next step? What is the next step?


"Ah nostalgia ... It ain't what it used to be." - Unknown