This story, from the Twin Cities is pretty unbelievable. Well this part isn't...
Caspersen, 70, had ridden his bike from his southeast Minneapolis home to a light-rail station, stored his bike on the train, ridden to the airport, but ...
There was no place to park his bike.
With his plane scheduled to depart, the desperate Caspersen locked his bike to a sign inside the Humphrey terminal in what he thought was an out-of-the way location. When he returned four days later, the bike was gone.
But this part is...
Apparently, an airport maintenance crew hadn't been satisfied with merely cutting the bike lock. They'd cut the bike into pieces, too.
But there are two good parts to this story.
First, he got his old Raleigh back. A group of Twin Cities three-speed bike enthusiasts cut, spliced and salvaged the parts needed to put the 40-pound bike back together.
"I can't believe it," said Caspersen as he looked at the bike, which he had bought in the late 1950s. "It's like having an old friend back."
And
Caspersen tried to turn the incident into a cause. He attempted to interest local politicians in making the airport a bike-friendly place.
The local pols didn't return his calls.
But the little saga had big impact on [U.S. Rep. Jim] Oberstar, who is a serious bicyclist.
At a news conference Wednesday afternoon, Oberstar said that two words would be added to the next Federal Aviation Administration trust fund.
"Bicycle storage," Oberstar said of the addition he vows to make to the $3.5 billion fund.
That means airports will be able to apply for grants from the fund to build places to ride and park bikes safely.
Unfortunately, it doesn't appear anyone knows who cut his bike up - so they don't know who to fire. When he got it back from the police they asked him...
"'Why wouldn't your bike have pedals?' he asked me," Caspersen said. "I said I didn't know. He wondered why my bike didn't have a seat. I said I didn't know. Finally, he just said, 'Why is your bike wrecked?' "
Some people, Caspersen noted, just don't like bikes, or the people who ride them.
There is some bike parking at National I know (though it's a good ways from the terminal as I recall - unless there is more than I'm thinking of). I don't know about Dulles or BWI - though I don't know how one would safely get to Dulles. I suspect bike parking would be more useful to employees than travelers.
It is funny that the airports are so anti-bike while the people who actually make the jet airliners at Boeing use bicycles to get around the plant. Airports have become, along with highways- the only really truly sactioned form of transport in the USA- public transport has nowhere near as much support and subsidy from the government.The way that the system is set up in the USA for most airports is to encourage cars ,parking , and suburban sprawl.The kind of airport represented by Reagan National is the exception in the USA.Everyone should go to Frankfurt to see how airports CAN be set up- with rail hubs and every kind of transport available to it making it a genuine hub and not just another engine of suburban sprawl.
Posted by: w | November 07, 2006 at 05:01 PM
I find this story to be just flabbergasting.
Incidentally, Rep. Jim Oberstar is going to be the new Chair of the Transportation & Infrastructure Committee in the 110th Congress.
Posted by: Chris | November 09, 2006 at 07:36 AM