Longing for the Bike Station

This letter to the WaPo about the sad state of bike parking at Union Station reminded me how critical getting the bike station up and going there is.

The parking area at the train station in the capital of the richest country in the world has room for about 30 bikes. Usually twice that number are shoved between the rack's odd, U-shaped metal bars. Some of the bicycles have been there a long time, judging from the orange rust covering them. Others are missing wheels and seats. Scooters -- even an occasional baby carriage -- make it nearly impossible to park a bicycle there.

There was supposed to be a meeting about it this month, but it was canceled because it was the same night as the election.

The area presently used for bike parking is often used as a staging area for construction in the area. This makes parking unpredictable, unreliable and inconvenient. Basically what Union Station is saying is "we'd put bike parking on a less valuable piece of land, but we can't find one."

It's not like there aren't parking lots around, it's just that bike parking isn't deemed as important as automobile parking. So rather than remove 5-10 car parking spaces, they inconvenience 60-90 bike commuters.

Another way they treat bike parking as less important is, as the writer mentions, not removing abandoned bikes. Now one must use a gentle touch when removing bikes, and I think they should be cautious about what they deem abandoned and what's just old, but I think a locked up, stripped down bike frame can be safely deemed abandoned. Cut it free, store it someplace for a reasonable time - do not cut it up into pieces - and then donate it if still not claimed. How long would they let an abandoned car sit in their parking lot?

Comments

[w]

what an ugly design. they should make something nicer looking that fits in with the beautiful structures around it. Where do they find these stupid "architects" that build such atrocities?Start over.If this is built- it will look as bad as the Department of Labor building in less than 5 years