Convener / Scribe: Anne Lorimer
Clementine’s downstairs 1:30
Attendees: Anne Lorimer, Grayson Pritchard, Carole Nash
Introduction: The Situation
We each moved to downtown Harrisonburg last summer from places where there is a strong bike culture (PDX and Japan). We like our new downtown’s simple undulating bike racks (although these do occasionally overflow, e.g. on a crowded night outside the Dodger). However, we have been frustrated when running errands in other parts of town, where there is often not only no designated bike parking, but also no street or traffic signs, or none skinny enough to accommodate both a bicycle frame and a U-lock. The local custom (as suggested by business staff and practiced by other bicyclists) is sometimes to use a (much less secure) cable lock to accommodate larger poles where these exist, or more often simply to leave the bicycle unlocked.
Costs of this approach:
* Unsecured bikes are the ‘low-hanging fruit’ that can jump-start a local network of bicycle theft, fencing, and illicit resale. It is such networks that make bicycle theft so prevalent in cities like Chicago or Portland, Oregon. Harrisonburg is fortunate in having low bicycle theft. If we can transition to a culture of securely locking bikes now, before a bicycle theft network gets off the ground, we may be able to avoid such problems altogether.
* Bad for business: disgruntled bicyclists, as customers, spend less time impulse-shopping, more time nervously glancing out the window wondering if their bike has been stolen yet, while improperly parked bicycles block the way of other customers (e.g. the sidewalk outside Kinko’s 5.26.09).
* Makes bicycle transportation appear marginalized, inconvenient, and desperate, rather than appropriate, convenient, and sustainable.
Current Efforts and Potential Ally Institutions:
The Bicycle Plan contains a single mention of bicycle parking: “The City is also working to … insure adequate bicycle storage racks at all public facilities and schools” (2005:12). The city’s public bike racks are heartening and much appreciated (though still a work in progress, e.g. there is no bike parking at the DMV: bicyclists need ID too!). If the city is to develop a widespread culture of bicycle transportation, bike parking will also need to be provided at other sites where it is currently lacking, such as doctors’ offices, drugstores, gyms, natural food stores, post offices, veterinarians, and even entire residential neighborhoods (such as the development just east of Garbers Church Road and south of Market Street).
The Shenandoah Valley Bicycle Coalition. Um, we are both a bit embarrassed that we haven’t joined yet. But evidently folks at the SVBC have been thinking about this issue: some quick googling turned up, reprinted in their October 1992 newsletter, a ‘Bicycle Parking Coupon’ for cyclists to hand out to local businesses. This coupon is included as an appendix below.
Bike-Friendly Businesses. Many local businesses have gone to the trouble of installing bike racks (e.g. Artful Dodger, Red Front, Shenandoah Bicycle Company). We hope their experience and knowledge can serve as a resource for other local businesses.
City Code. Bicycle parking is mentioned at three points in the Code: one prohibition, and two requirements. The prohibition, in section 13-2-9, states that “it shall be unlawful for any person to park a bicycle on a sidewalk in front of any building having glass windows extending to within two (2) feet of the sidewalk”. The requirements are that in “mixed-use planned community district” (MX-U) areas, “bicycle racks shall be included at appropriate locations and provided at a minimum of one (1) bicycle rack accommodating a minimum of four bicycles for every one hundred (100) off-street parking spaces; and that in “medium density residential district” (R-3) areas, in order to obtain “multiple-family development special use permits”, applicants must demonstrate “adequate … bicycle facilities” either exist, will exist, or are not relevant.
We suggest that the city should add to the code language that would at the very least encourage all new businesses to consider bicycle parking.
Harrisonburg Police. Some police officers patrol downtown on bicycles. The police department has a bike rack out front. Most importantly, presumably the police are anxious to keep bike theft rates low. So we are hoping the police might be allies in the effort to increase secure bicycle parking.
The police Bicycle Unit is part of the Special Operations Division, whose Division Commander is Lieutenant Tom Hoover.
The Chief of Police is Col. D. G. Harper. General HPD contact info: email mrgangloff@ci.harrisonburg.va.us, call 540-434-4436, or write to Public Safety Building, 101 N. Main St., Harrisonburg, VA 22801.
Three Potential Roles for City Government in Procuring Bike Racks:
1. The city government buys and installs bike racks around town. This might be a top-down process, or there might be a web page where you can request that a bike rack be installed at your location.
2. The city government acquires bike racks at a wholesale volume discount and stores them somewhere. Locations that request a bike rack can have one installed for a fee. In this case the city basically acts as a buyer’s club.
3. You’re on your own. The city plays no role. (How would this work in the case of shopping malls? How do malls’ parking budgets work, i.e. how are costs shared between stores? These budgets could be revised to include bicycle parking most simply by taking existing car parking slots and installing racks in them; one car parking slot would thereby provide four bicycle parking slots.)
ACTION AGENDA: stuff someone, maybe us, oughta do:
1. Email Carole Nash, a JMU geography professor who kindly informed Anne during that her students have compiled maps of Harrisonburg’s bicycle parking (or lack thereof). Ask if we can put these maps on the web.
2. Contact the SVBC. Run our plans by them. See what they think.
3. Get a webpage. Maybe on some blogging site, or maybe as part of the SVBC. Use this as a means to create accountability and transparency in organizing ourselves and others around accomplishing tasks such as:
* Push to improve the City Code.
* Find a contact with the Harrisonburg Police Department. Ask for police input and approval (endorsement?) for a Bicycle Parking Coupon (see below).
* Find out if there are stimulus funds or other grants available for sustainable transportation infrastructure.
* Compile ‘best practices’ and business-to-business contacts, so that business owners who realize the need for bicycle parking don’t all have to start from scratch.
* Talk to local printers about parking coupon booklets (see below).
4. Help bicyclists who patronize businesses and other establishments to alert those establishments to the need for bike parking.
One means of doing this is a Bicycle Parking Coupon (see example in the Appendix). Ideally, this coupon would be attractive, easy to print off the web, etc. We could also have attractive, wallet-size booklets of them available free at local bicycle stores etc.
It’s important that we also set up a system to track these coupons (because often the people they are handed to may be clerks in a national chain, for example, rather than people in a position to make decisions about bike parking). It would be cool if the wallet-size booklets included a little stub, with serial number, on which to note when and where each coupon was handed out. Bicyclists could then report back on the website.
Alternately, bicyclists could simply report on the website what establishments they patronize that don’t have bicycle parking. But it’s perhaps more effective if we can cite a specific visit, by a customer who was actually on a bicycle at the time.
In either case, we would then write to the business or other establishment, citing the number (and perhaps names) of their customers who have registered in favor of bicycle parking, and urging them to consider making this change.
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APPENDIX: BICYCLE PARKING COUPON:
l BIKECENENNÌAL^
The Bicycle Travel Association
P.O. Box 8308, Missoula, MT 59807
(406) 721-1776
BICYCLE PARKING
As slight as the public pressure for bicycle parking may be, the problem of securing a bicycle in a
safe and convenient way is real and is shared by every individual bicyclist. A well thought out and
effectively executed bicycle parking program which appeals to both the implementors and the users
is the answer to reducing bicycle theft and is a positive factor in encouraging bicycle use.
In keeping with that thought we are sharing with you this Bicycle Parking Coupon taken from the
Chicagoland Bicycle Federation newsletter. The Federation has a Business Bicycle Parking Packet
they distribute. You can reach them at PO Box 64396, Chicago, IL 68664 or call 312-42-PEDAL. If you
get a recording punch 7. We also suggest consulting the advocacy section of The Cyclists’ Yellow
Pages for sources of information on bicycle parking. Below are some suggested uses for the coupon:
■ Pass out at club meetings for members to use around the community.
■ Print it in your newsletter: .the coupon can be clipped out, copied by members and mailed or
dropped off at local businesses.
■ Make copies available to your Bicycle Coordinator or Bicycle Advisory Committee.
■ Let your local Business Association know that the coupons will be in circulation; give them
a copy of Tech Note #P1: Bike Parking Location (see Club Handbook)
■ Distribute copies to bicycle shops.
BICYCLE PARKING COUPON
I am your customer and a bicyclist. You should know that it is
difficult to find a place to park a bicycle near your business.
Good accessible bicycle parking would make your business
more attractive to me and many other customers. More and
more people in our community are using bicycles for shopping
and errands. This is good for our health, our environment and
helps relieve traffic and parking congestion. By providing
bicycle parking your business and the community will benefit.
For information on bicycle parking: where to put it, what types work best, how
to turn unused space into productive customer bicycle parking, contact:
at
Thanks.
Customer signature.
A NONPROFIT. MEMBER SUPPORTED SERVICE ORGANIZATION FOR RECREATIONAL BICYCLISTS
^ f-nnif’ííon recycled paoe
