Ann Arbor DDA experiments with in-street bicycle parking

I sure wish they had more bike parking at the Farmer's Market. They have been promising it for years.

I gave the one in front of ABC a whirl the other night, looks nice and sturdy. The problem with it though is that you either have to 1) hoist your bike over it from the street, 2) move your bike through ABC's outdoor seating, or 3) try to squeeze in between the curb and the blue railing. None of these are terribly easy with a bunch of bikes already in there and with a bunch of diners unhappy with your cumbersome hoisting/maneuvering.
 
I honestly thought it was installed backwards. Then I saw one in Kerrytown and saw how easy it is to use when there isn't a barricade of tables and diners. I vote that this particular rack should either be moved down the street or actually installed backwards.

Good DDA program, nice story & pix, & good suggestion from Phil Dokas for flipping just the ABC one. Would be interesting to hear an editorial rebuttal from someone who would prefer car parking.

Taking legit parking spaces for cars and motorcycles and putting bike racks in them... In the street???

Insane!

What a horrible idea... It shows how a special interest group can over-rule, not only common sense but the legit needs of the people in A2.

I wish the New Jersey Bike Girl would move back there and manage their cities.

What's your better suggestion, MotO?

Side Walk racks, Light Poles, signs... the places where kids & bike riding adults have been locking their bikes forever.

That would include me... I rode my bike around town for years but just must have been lucky not to have been recruited into a bike fascist club (not you Phil).

I was surprised to see this in front of the Co-op the other day, but delighted when I realized what it was. Also thought it was installed backwards, but I guess that keeps bikes from being hit by inattentive cars.

Completely disagree with MotO: parking bikes on the sidewalks in A2 has become increasingly more difficult and impedes on true pedestrian traffic. In the meantime, Ann Arbor seems like it's been on a crusade to develop more downtown parking, and lots and vertical structures make so much more sense for cars than street parking.

Personally, I'd love to see large sections of downtown completely stripped of street parking for cars (and even some closed to vehicle traffic entirely). If you're going to drive, go park in a structure, if you bike you get to park up close.

Seattle put in some temporary bike racks; here's a review:

http://carfreedays.com/2009/03/26/tour-de-seattles-on-street-bike-parking/

There are similar racks in Portland, was looking for a good example of those but did not see one at first glance.

I think this is a good idea. Like others I think they are installed backwards. Soon I will get pissy with people riding bikes on the sidewalk downtown. Either walk it or ride in the street.

Indeed, just last week—and this is no hyperbole—on the same evening I had to go over a block to lock my bike up when going to ABC and in Kerrytown. Now, I don't mean to whine about having to walk a block over (I do have two perfectly well functioning legs, after all), but I do mean to say that while drivers are able to assume they'll find parking nearby, so should it be for bikers. And the fact of the matter is: there are parts of town where this isn't true anymore.

And to keep it in perspective: exactly 3 parking spaces in the entirety of Ann Arbor have been converted into high density bike parking. Three. One more is in the works. I wonder how many thousands of parking spots are available for cars. This is a drop in the water for cars looking for parking and literally an enormous boon for bikers (who shouldn't be on the sidewalk to begin with).

The Ann Arbor Bike Touring Society brings so many cyclists to Chelsea on Saturday mornings that the club has built two racks that are set up each Saturday morning to hold bicycles. They replace two parking spots with 40 or bicycles. The riders are all customers at local shops. The racks are stored at the Chelsea police station and set up and removed by Chelsea Boy Scouts as a service project. I think that everyone wins in this situation.
I expect the Ann Arbor experiments will turn out to be great for Ann Arbor as well.

In a downtown where parking is a huge issue this is another boneheaded idea. I live on the south east side (packard & Platt area) and rarely ever go downtown because of parking. The only time I do is on my bike and in 27 years of living in A2 have never had a problem finding a place to lock it up.

Ed,
This idea was actually based on Seattle's efforts. A woman on the DDA board saw the racks while she was there and suggested the idea to the DDA.

It's nice to see them using bike racks that look like bike racks so that people will know what they are, rather than more these silly things:

http://blog.mlive.com/annarbornews_impact/2009/06/large_BIKErack25.JPG

This is a great idea! The loss of four or five auto spaces to accommodate 15 times as many bicycles is a no-brainer in my book. Bicycles are vehicles too and should be regarded as such.

Confidential to the intern-author: Espresso (both the drink and the store) is spelled with an s, not an x. It's paying attention to the small things that connotes journalistic quality.

Thanks @MichiganPete for the spelling catch; that has been corrected.

Nothing wrong with the city experimenting with some creative ideas for bike parking. The units are not permanent, as mentioned, and would allow for the tweaking of placement. I would venture that @dylan is correct with the orientation of the racks to keep bikers from backing out into traffic.
If anyone from the city is reading, here is a good resource that might help in researching the best placement for these racks (as well as some other notables)
http://www.sustainableconnections.org/practices/racks
I personally like idea #2: "Contact local bicycling organizations. Go straight to the people who are on their bikes every day..."

Who woulda thunk!

["I wonder how long before bike parking meters are installed...", Sam thought to himself.]

Great idea, but what I'd really love to see around A2 are a few more covered bike parking spots. Just about the only sheltered (dry, rust-free) place I can think of to park a bike when the weather gets nasty is the nicely designed spot in front of Tisch Hall on UM central campus.

I rode past both the racks today early in the afternoon, and was surprised and pleased to see the number of bikes using these racks. I am sure the merchants like the idea that perhaps 12 or 14 customers can "park" in a space usually taken by just two cars.
Hopefully it will encourage more people to use alternative transportation so that they also can park closer to those businesses they want to frequent.

Michigan auto culture is pretty strident and insane. Is it logical, attractive or orderly to be able to park one's auto on the steps of the DIA for $10? But you can. Any argument that using !one! on-street parking space legitimate vehicles - bicycles -- is somehow wrong, or even "fascist" is, to be kind, silly. Use your feet and walk from the hundreds of unused parking spaces at the 4th and Washington parking structure, in the multi-million-dollar, constantly maintained and renovated palace of infrastructure dedicated solely to private autos.

I like having these available as an option. Businesses know their customers. If enough of their customers ride, it's just cold, hard economics to park seven of them instead of one car. And if most of their customers drive, they don't request a rack.

Here's another photo, from an on-street bike parking setup in Portland, Oregon:

http://bikeportland.org/2007/07/06/belmont-bike-parking-an-instant-hit/

and I was able to find a standard parking sign for bicycles (D4-3)

http://mutcd.fhwa.dot.gov/HTM/2003r1/part9/fig9b-04_longdesc.htm

on this Department of Transportation site.

According to the city's website, there are 1,750 metered parking spaces in the downtown and campus areas. The temporary bike racks take up exactly 3 of them, reducing capacity by less than 2/10 of 1%. This is not going to drive people in cars away.

The more bike parking the better. Almost every time I ride downtown I end up locked to a parking meter and sometimes that puts my bike too close to parking cars.

This also reminds me of a bike parking garage I saw in Amsterdam. Multilevel, ramps, thousands of bikes. Some good photos here http://fastermustache.org/gallery/biking/fm_europe/z_bikes+-+5.jpg.html

- The new on-street bike parking is nice. The picture even has a Prius (and trees!) in the background. How Ann Arbor. I think it needs more handbills, though. Seriously, kudos DDA!

- I agree with D. Frye - we really need covered parking in Ann Arbor. Ask anyone who bike commutes year-round. Or check out the recommendations in "Successful Bicycle Planning", written by a visiting professor at UM several years ago.

- It's a little puzzling that the parking faces the sidewalk. As I approach on the street, how would I park in it? And backing into traffic isn't a serious concern. It's not like bikes have blind spots in their windows. No one just blithely backs a bike into traffic.

- The area around the Co-op has less parking than it did in the past. Some of those new hoops were removed. Farmer's market has lost bike parking in the past few years as well. They put a few back in recently, but it's still down from a peak seven or eight years ago.

- There are a number of us who use bike trailers on Saturday mornings to shop at the farmer's market and the Co-op. (I love setting good trends!) It would be helpful if someone could pull a bike trailer up when people are designing and placing bike parking.

- While we're on the topic, could we revisit the sidewalk clearing ordinance to discourage people from piling up the sidewalk snow on the bike parking? The Co-op is one of the worst offenders.

For those wanting covered and permanent solutions:


Double Parker (Top racks pull out, then down to load)
http://www.josta.de/english/gfx/gl1027.jpg


Bike Tower (How fast could A2 fill one of these up?)
http://www.josta.de/english/gfx/bteng1.jpg

OK, but those look more expensive and elaborate than necessary. I'm thinking of the parking at the Grad, at the Art and Architecture building (thank you, Prof. Levine!), or something like this, or this. Anything fairly cheap and durable would work.

I've heard that one problem with putting in covered parking is that it tends to attract smokers. That may be, but I suspect that the real problem is that most people making the decisions are motorists and don't think it's worth it to make bike commuting more feasible. Multi-million dollar parking lots and structures, no problem; an extra five hundred to make a dozen bike parking spots usable year-round, too expensive.

Shoot. I was afraid those links wouldn't work. OK, so the pictures are:
http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3574/3447634218_9b16f5f6ca.jpg
and
http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2263/1887552603_91e4d70338.jpg
(I sure wish we could inline images, though I know the potential danger.)

There are lots of examples of nice covered parking. Just image search "covered bike parking" on your favorite search. To me, covered bike parking is a sure sign of a bike-friendly northern community, which Ann Arbor really isn't, despite what the LAB says.

And, BTW, on-street temporary bike parking, real bike parking art (more like the stuff David Byrne designed in NYC), and covered bike parking are all recommendations the Ann Arbor Bicycle Coordinating Committee made over a decade ago, before Council dissolved it.

Well people complaining about losing 1 space: If I am a business owner and I am upset about losing 1 space, think about the 15 potential customers you can fit into that 1 space now. Its actually a benefit when you look at it like that.

In Germany, I saw some metal shipping containers (the kind loaded off ships and onto trucks) that had been sliced open and filled with bike racks. Effective, urban, and probably cost-effective.

There are also covered bicycle parking spaces in the public parking structures. Maynard, Forest, 4th & William, 4th & Washington, etc. have hoops under cover in the structures, plus there are bike lockers available to rent (the getDowntown program coordinates bike locker rentals)

I used the one in front of the Co-op this morning, when I returned at 9:30 am there were 7 bikes, half filled. Two of the curb side bike racks that are now gone made it hard for a handicapped passenger parking in the handicapped spot to exit their car, so I support that removal.
I like the convenience, the camaraderie (as I was locking up another bicyclist starting asking me about local bicycle laws), and the message of support these racks convey for bicycling. The more people are aware of bicycles, the safer we are. This increases that awareness.
I would love to have that extra rack "stored" in the Kerrytown area, maybe even in the County Parking lot, across from the Co-op, or closer to the Farmer's Market. Keep it in use except when it is needed for special events!

Hey all,
I know the DDA is reading these comments, so that's to everyone who has given suggestions. I've so far been happy to see the number of people using these racks. While they aren't perfect (more covered bike parking and more bike parking in Kerrytown would be great) they continue to move Ann Arbor in the right direction.

I also know that the DDA is still interesting in putting bike parking on the meter posts that no longer have meters on them, I'm just not sure on the timing.

If you ever have more suggestions about how to make the downtown more bike friendly, I invite you to speak out at a DDA meeting (first Weds. of every month, 12pm, 150 S. Fifth Ave) or contact the DDA at dda@a2dda.org to let them know what you think.

These new bike racks are a great idea and I will use them. The Ann Arbor YMCA also has covered bike parking for around 80 bikes on Washington St within the DDA.

Ooh, forgot folks from the DDA might be lurking. I do have to say that the DDA has done wonders in putting in bike hoops, just about everywhere but Main Street, and even there the DDA has managed to add a few. Most of the time, and most places downtown, a convenient bike hoop is pretty close.

As for the covered parking, when I say "commuting" I should say "utility cycling". Lockers might be useful if you biked to work where a locker was handy and had a really expensive bike. Even there, I'm clumsy enough to prefer covered parking. However, for shopping, going to a movie, going to the dentist or doctor, etc., covered parking is much better, since lockers require keys and reservations. Besides, covered parking is cheaper, parks more bikes than lockers, and is available to other people in the evenings, on weekends, and when the commuter isn't biking that day.

There are a few good examples of covered parking around Ann Arbor, they're just few, far between, and generally not in most places they're needed.

Thanks (to a2 girl) for the tip on covered bike parking inside some of the public parking structures. It never would have occurred to me to look inside them. (And I've lived in A2 for 23 years!)

As for the trade-off of 15 bike spots vs 1 car, I think the impact for local businesses would be pretty obvious. Especially considering that bike riders are very likely shopping right near the place where they've parked their bikes.

Fantastic idea! Glad to see the City increasing bike parking around town. Hope the University does the same.

As a business owner on N. 4th Ave Street, with one of the racks in front of my shop, I have mixed feelings. One one hand, I am glad they are putting them in.

On the other, putting them in front of businesses, when across the street the spaces are not in front of a business, is just bad planning. Older people have to go a bit further and walk around the racks, and folks who need to unload things have lost nearby spaces. Overall, a good idea poorly executed.

There's a story in Slate about bicycle parking:

http://www.slate.com/id/2225511

"What Would Get Americans Biking to Work?
Decent parking.
By Tom Vanderbilt
Posted Monday, Aug. 17, 2009, at 5:34 PM ET"