Post any interesting links you find in the comment section.
Local
National
- Happy Bikey Face
- Gift ideas for cyclists 2012
- Professionalism and the bike commute
- Urban Bicycle Networks and Sustainable Communities
- Leg-powered transports add new look to Columbia
- Stockton woman finds path to easy commute is on two wheels
- Velolet Connects Bike Owners with Bike Renters
- Pedaling the way to go for Las Vegas tailor
- Bike Hub app sees over 150000 downloads
International
- Mexico Debuts Bicycle-Powered Lighted Christmas Tree
- Can You Afford NOT to Use Your Bicycle for Commuting?
- Kyoto police to crack down on drunken cyclists, those riding with no brakes
- How to commute by bike and conquer the grocery run
Fancy…
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:BART_El_Cerrtio_Plaza_eLockers.jpg
Lacking a train but having a bus, can the Old Pueblo do better?
lockers are not a first last or middle mile solution
Bike lockers certainly are part of an overall solution to better integrate cycling into transportation and to make things feasible or more so for commuters. Not everyone is happy having their bike simply locked to a bike rack, with easy access for those looking to steal bike bits or the entire bike.
The University of Arizona started putting bike lockers in place a few years ago, and I believe they still sell out the rent on all the lockers each semester or year. That means that there are riders who value the greater security of a bike locker.
I’m willing to bet that if you checked to see what portion of bikes stolen at UA were in lockers you’d find that number is 0 or very close to it.
Bike theft can be a big deterrent to getting more people on the road on bicycles, and bike theft is common in Tucson. In 2008 Tucson was ranked 5th in bike theft (Tied with Portland) in the US.
Getting businesses, governments, and/or citizens (in the form of higher taxes) to pay for the installation of bike lockers is an entirely different matter and more difficult thing to accomplish.
Bike lockers at destination points make complete sense. If you click the link that Red Star provided you’ll see that the lockers are at a transportation terminus. In a crowded urban setting you might find some people willing to lock a bike into a locker and then walk a couple of blocks from the bus stop to get to their destination. Further context is that Red Star provided as explanation to another comment he/she made earlier a link to a California first mile final mile transportation conference. The conference notes talk about solutions for the final mile/first mile dilemma. 1% of Caltrains riders use the bike lockers. A much higher percentage of riders with bicycles are using the train to transport their bicycles and then ride to their final destinations. The conference notes making the point that a major problem with this multi modal transportation solution is a lack of capacity on the trains for bicycles. Bicyclists are often bumped during peak usage hours.
UA and UA Medical Centre, yes lockers make total sense at these destination points. They don’t make any sense at the Sunflower Market on 1st Ave. or the Home Depot Centre on Oracle. Just ride around back to spot the un-utilised empty lockers.
Bicycle theft is definitely a problem at UA. I do think a lot of the problem could be solved by not using a cable lock to lock up your bicycle. Not leaving bikes in place for days would also help as would employing good locking strategies. Registering bicycles so they can be recovered is helpful. If you read the stolen bicycle section of this blog there is a theme. A very high percentage of the stolen bicycles were not secured at all when they were stolen. Not that I’m blaming the victims. In a perfect world you should be able to leave a bicycle unsecured and still find it where you left it 5 minutes later. I lost the absolute best bicycle I’ll ever own by walking around back at a friend’s to announce that I was there. Less than 3 minutes, the bike was gone and I never got it back. Oh that reminds me, I also didn’t report the theft or have the serial number of the frame etc so even if it was recovered I had no way of it getting back to me.