By Dr. Tom Albright
President: Truckee Meadows Bicycle Alliance
Director: Laboratory for Conservation Biogeography
University of Nevada, Reno!
Deputy Nevada State Climatologist
What if you get to your destination and there’s no place to securely park your bike? Either there’s no bike rack at all or there are “wheelbender” racks that sometimes make it impossible to securely lock your bike to (see figure below). This happens a lot and can discourage people from biking and lead to bike theft. Read on to learn how you can help fix this problem by mapping and rating bike racks using bikerackmap.com!
Some unhelpful bike parking: Many wheels will not even fit, make it impossible to use a U-lock, and risk the wheel getting bent
Some unhelpful bike parking: Classic “wheelbender” rendered even more useless because it is shoved up against a wall. It is nothing more than an illusion of a bike rack beyond a single spot at the end potentially.
Some unhelpful bike parking: When designers fail to include bike parking, people take matters in their own hands – at least in this case, it doesn’t appear to block pedestrian or disabled persons’ access.
We are partnering with Nevada-grown bikerackmap.com to map and rate bike racks in Reno-Sparks. By crowdsourcing the mapping and rating of bike parking, we can provide helpful information to anyone trying to get around by bike. This registry can also help to incentivize businesses and communities to improve their bike parking. Our bikerackmap.com friends in Las Vegas recently designed, installed and certified four-star bike parking right by the entrance of a local Sprouts Market.
An example of 4-star bike parking at a Las Vegas-area Sprouts Farmers Market. This excellent infrastructure works for today’s bigger and heavier cargo e-bikes, is prominently located, has adequate space, and bikerackmap.com signage welcoming customers who arrive by bike. It was a major bikerackmap.com bike parking improvement project. [image credit: bikerackmap.com].
This is why we held our first #BikeRackBlitz in Midtown last month. We got nearly 20 folks to come out on a Tuesday evening and, within about an hour, mapped and rated about 100 bike racks in the area! And of course we celebrated afterwards with some pizza, wings, and refreshing beverages (Thanks Noble Pie!).
After a quick tutorial and planning session
BikeRackBlitz volunteers spent about an hour mapping and rating over100 bike racks in and around Reno’s Midtown district
and then enjoyed food, beverages, and comradery at Noble Pie Parlor!
Here’s where YOU come in. Want to get more bike racks on the map? Go to bikerackmap.com and create a free account. Then check out a few of their handy instructions, videos, and FAQs (make sure you learn how to avoid rating inflation - -hint: wave racks normally get just a single star!) and start mapping. Also stay tuned to @bikewashoe and @Trukcee Meadows Bicycle Alliance for future events, online challenges, and the upcoming, coveted Reno Rackies™ bike rack awards!
Let us know your thoughts and comments below, and share this post with everyone who cares about bike parking.
This is wonderful! I’ll share it with as many friends/organizations as I can think of.