The bike rack that you parked at off Dayton St was one of only about 36 bike parking stalls (out of more than 200 total) that is NOT covered. If you had looked at any other side of the building, you would have found covered racks.
Union South's garage wasn't intended to be hostile to bikes. It wasn't intended to be hostile to cars, either, but it is. The main difference is that we can provide parking for bikes elsewhere, so we did. We cannot provide parking for cars elsewhere, so they are still allowed in. (Re)construction of Memorial Union is imminent. The plan there is to provide at least as much parking as the current demand. But even that is going to require compromises on either the convenience of the racks themselves (using higher capacity racks that are somewhat harder to use) or their number. Indeed, the plan everywhere on campus is to provide at least as much bike parking as there is demand, and, as difficult as that is, it is much easier to do within the context of multimillion dollar construction projects. So we are steadily making progress, but it will take us several years to meet our current goals (and, like the construction of more road capacity for cars, when you plan to meet peak demand, your target capacity is constantly increasing). Chuck Strawser Pedestrian & Bicycle Transportation Planner Commuter Solutions Transportation Services UW-Madison Room 124 WARF 610 Walnut St Madison WI 53726 608-263-2969 www.wisc.edu/trans ________________________________ From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Robert F. Nagel Sent: Tuesday, October 18, 2011 10:40 AM To: STRAWSER, Charles Cc: bikies Subject: Re: [Bikies] rant about union south parking garage bike ban The bike rack I ended up parking in was just to the east of the garage ramp along dayton street wasn't covered. I didn't think to look around for a covered one. I had no reason to expect I would find one, given that the logic I had employed in expecting to find space underground was flawed, or was it Union South's logic that was flawed? That the proposed bike station came in a half a million dollars explains why it didn't happen, but it doesn't explain why the parking garage must be hostile to bikes. It seems that construction on Memorial Union is imminent. What's the plan for bikes there? --- Robert F. Nagel [email protected] www.nagel-law.com Thirty on the Square, 10th Floor 30 W. Mifflin St., Suite 1001 Madison, WI 53703 608-255-1501 office 608-255-1504 fax 608-438-9501 cell On Tue, Oct 18, 2011 at 10:10 AM, STRAWSER, Charles <[email protected]> wrote: Robert, The design for Union South and its underground parking garage were decided before I was hired to work at the University (and before the current director of Transportation was hired, as well) so I don't know who made all the decisions or why. But I can tell you that about 60% of the new bike racks around Union South are covered, including the ones between the north side of Wendt and the SW corner or Union South, many of the ones on the east façade of Union South facing Computer Science, and all of the racks on the north side of Union South are very well covered. I'm not sure why racks in the parking garage, even if they existed, would be preferable to the racks at street level that are covered, especially since many of them (though not all) are covered as well as they would be in the parking garage. Granted, those racks are often full (just as the uncovered racks are often full) because the bike parking provided does not meet observed demand, a situation that Transportation Services hopes to avoid with all future major construction projects by bringing data on demand for bike parking to the table long before the architects have fleshed out a concept. But your complaint seemed to be more about the lack of covered bike parking than an insufficient amount. The steep ramp down into Union South's garage, and the extremely tight turning radii means that negotiating the ramp is very difficult for cars, even before the access control gates were installed. For those reasons, the current director of Transportation Services would prefer not to encourage bicycles from entering and navigating that ramp. He is not opposed to bike parking in any ramps, and there are bike racks in many of the Universities ramps; he is just concerned about bicyclists' safety in some of the more challenging ones. I do not know why police were training in there. Perhaps it was specifically because the challenges there would make their training more effective. Also, parking your bike in that garage might have been your first choice, but it would not necessarily have been every cyclist's first choice. I have been specifically told by several women that they will not use the existing bike racks in some other ramps because they do not feel comfortable accessing those racks alone. So what you presumed to be the best option for bicyclists is not necessarily what every cyclist would want. Lastly, as I posted before to this list, the estimate for the bike station at Union South was for roughly a half a million dollars, not "several thousand dollars." "Several thousand dollars" wouldn't even have covered the cost of the, er, covered racks that were installed outside the new Union South. Chuck Strawser Pedestrian & Bicycle Transportation Planner Commuter Solutions Transportation Services UW-Madison Room 124 WARF 610 Walnut St Madison WI 53726 608-263-2969 www.wisc.edu/trans ________________________________ From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Robert F. Nagel Sent: Monday, October 17, 2011 6:33 PM To: bikies Subject: [Bikies] rant about union south parking garage bike ban I understand that a bike-station-thingy was considered, but rejected at Union South, but I was surprised when I was shooed away trying to park by bike in bike racks that I presumed existed in the parking garage. It was raining, so I thought that would be a good place to park my bike. I had associated the garage with bikes because I had been in the garage once when police were doing bike-police training. My first red flag that I wasn't welcome was the gates were within inches of the cement wall and I had to shimmy past them. Then I was met by some sort of attendant who scolded me and sent me back out into the rain telling me that bikes are not allowed in the garage, as if it should have been obvious to me. That seemed crazy until I realized there weren't any bike racks down there anyway, which is, also, of course, crazy. So, what happened here? I mean it's one thing to get out-maneuvered when you're trying to add several thousand dollars on to a $100 million project (or whatever bike stations and unions souths cost), but it's another thing to end up with a ban on bikes and without a single steel bar to lock your bike to in the whole garage. --- Robert F. Nagel [email protected] www.nagel-law.com Thirty on the Square, 10th Floor 30 W. Mifflin St., Suite 1001 Madison, WI 53703 608-255-1501 office 608-255-1504 fax 608-438-9501 cell
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