Cyclists riding around town may soon see some new bike corrals popping up around town.
Ann Chanecka, the City of Tucson’s bike and pedestrian coordinator, said a new temporary bike corral would be delivered and installed at eXo Roast Co in the coming weeks.
“I ordered it as a temporary corral so if in the future businesses are interested in trying it out, but not ready to make the full commitment, I’ll be able to move this around,” Chanecka said.
Eventually the temporary corral outside Exo will be replaced by the city’s first parklet with integrated bike parking.
A second corral will be installed on University Boulevard outside Fuku Sushi.
A third corral, which is currently being designed, will go in outside The Food Conspiracy Co-op.
Before the streetcar construction, there were three bike corrals. Now there is only one located outside Epic Cafe at University Boulevard and Fourth Avenue.
The corral outside of Time Market on University Boulevard and The Rialto Theater have both been removed because of the streetcar.
“Portland just installed 97th bike corral and we are now down to one bike corral,” Chanecka said. “We are going in the opposite direction, but that is changing.”
Chanecka is hoping other businesses will express interest in getting a corral installed.
Rocco’s Pizza seems like a prime candidate. Where do you think a bike corral would be useful?
How much more of our bicycle infrastructure must be sacrifice for the Almighty Streetcar?
It would seem that cyclists thought the ones that were removed were pretty useful.
The Rialto one was often loaded and now bikes are leaned up against the Time Market or locked to the fence. Maybe accommodations will be made after the dust settles from all the construction, but it would appear the city is not too interested in having bicycle useage compete with streetcar ridership. Let’s see how many bike parking spaces the new ‘PAG’ building gets.
Best places –
1. Multiple ones on University between Park and Euclid (not just one)
2. As close to Time Market as you can get
3. In front of Yoga Oasis on Congress
4. Near Bison Wiches on 4th
Steve
That’s an interesting comment to me, in light of the fact that I just got done with a conversation with a friend who uses transit exclusively, and who boiled the whole streetcar thing down to this: “How many shaded bus stops with seating could they have put up in Tucson for that money?”
It kind of hit me like a ton of bricks, because I still have the luxury option of driving to my 2nd job (my first is home-based) three times a week, while she cannot drive due to disability. The fact that there are so many bus stops without any sort of seating and cover, especially with the extreme heat/monsoon weather variables we experience here, is appalling! Likewise, the lack of bicycle infrastructure/parking…though we are getting on the ball about that. I hope we start doing something concrete and common-sense for the growing numbers who need and/or want to start using public transport.
Almighty car indeed…
Oops…I meant that as a response to Martha’s comment.
University has lost so much bicycle parking since construction. I don’t care if it’s a corral or what, it just needs to be there again. Time Market has no bike racks now, and it had LOTS of bike parking even before the corral… I usually lock my bike to a fence because there isn’t enough parking along the main gate area. Every concert I’ve gone to at the rialto since the corral was installed, the corral was full. There needs to be parking there again.
The area near Exo is a good spot. I lock to a tree when I’m over there.
The co-op is a good spot for a corral.
Really, any spot in the downtown and university area where there is a business shouldn’t be further than 20 feet from a couple bike racks.
How about some bike parking in front of La Cocina? The rack they have inside is hard to get to and fills up quickly, and the only parking outside are parking meters, which aren’t really safe to lock to…
Is there a way to provide incentive, or a smart pamphlet to give to businesses on why they should convert just ONE of their parking spots to bike parking?
I think there need to be a lot of bike corral on 4th ave from University Ave to 9th St!
What James said, La Cocina indeed! It sucks to try and park a bicycle there. The recent LSA open house I was circling the block looking for somewhere to lock my bike.
There is ample bike parking at Trader Joe’s (Campbell and Rillito River) primarily due to Mike’s talking with the manager of the store. That is probably the best way to get businesses to provide facilities for parking/locking bikes … impress on the business that you are more likely to shop there if there is adequate bike parking. Jimmy Johns excluded, apparently, eh Colby?
It was real nice to see that a new bike parking area with racks and cement pad was created at Robert’s Restaurant…even shaded under a tree. A long-time Tucson favorite and located on Grant, Roberts can be accessed from Glenn on Edith, about a block east of Country Club.