Any chance temp tracks could be installed on the sidewalk terrace on the
east side of UW bookstore ? If nothing else it would (hopefully)
displace the disgusting row of scooters that has taken over the area in
the last 2-3 years.
On 5/8/2014 8:46 AM, STRAWSER, Charles wrote:
All of the bike parking on the east and west facades of Memorial
Library will remain during and after reconstruction of State St Mall
(though some departments on campus would like to see all the bike
parking on the west façade of Memorial Library replaced with table and
chairs-which I agree would be a good use of that space so long as we
can find someplace to relocate that bike parking, but I'm not seeing
it now).
State Street Mall (the 700-800 blocks) will incorporate a 26' wide
fire lane down the middle of it after construction (upon which
cyclists will be able to ride as they do now on East Campus Mall).
This means, iirc, that Fitch Ct (the alley next to University
Bookstore) will no longer have to serve as a fire lane for the
bookstore. That, in turn, means that the old obsolete racks in Fitch
Ct that were designed to park bikes at an angle (to reduce the depth
of the footprint they take up) will be replaced with racks that park
bikes perpendicular to the building. I believe the "coathangers on a
rail" style rack is planned for that alley (similar to Dero Campus or
Saris City racks, such as the ones outside MMB and CCB and elsewhere
on State St). There are also plans for a Bcycle station to be located
there. And there will be about 30 bike parking spaces added to the
west end of the 800 block of State St near Park St between Humanities
and the Historical Society building.
The University advocated for the use of our newly designed and
approved (for use on campus) high density racks to increase capacity,
but city staff does not approve of our high density racks. Admittedly,
our high density racks do not meet APBP standards if you only consider
the bike parking in two dimensions, but our feeling is that by
staggering the heights of every other stall, we mitigate handlebar
interference, and provide adequate spacing (so long as you consider
all three dimensions). Clearly the high density racks sacrifice a bit
of convenience for people using them, but gain the benefit of 33% more
capacity than our single-sided "duckbill" bike racks and 45% more
capacity than duckbills when they are double-sided.
Another benefit is that bikes with large front racks or baskets can
still use the new high density rack as intended, whereas the design of
the "duckbill" stalls obstructs most front baskets and racks.
"Inverted U" racks accommodate nearly any kind of bike with nearly any
handlebar and/or rack/basket configuration, but only when spaced to
APBP standards, and then we get even less capacity than duckbills
(when placed in double-sided configurations). Union South was rebuilt
with enough inverted Us to accommodate 206 bikes (including Us
installed on the west façade of Comp Sci), yet we've counted over 300
bikes there. So the versatility of Us goes out the window when three
bikes are locked to every U, and half of them are falling down so that
there is virtually no access to most bikes, and certainly a lot less
convenience.
I probably shouldn't have brought this up since I don't really have
time to discuss the pros and cons of various rack designs ad
infinitum, and I'm sure this post will foment such a discussion. Let
me just point out that University (system, not UW-Madison) policy is
that bikes can ONLY be locked to racks -- not light poles or signs or
anything else that the city allows bikes to be locked to (so long as
they don't impede ped and vehicle access).
So if I don't provide enough bike parking to meet demand on campus,
someone calls us and asks us to impound the bikes that are locked to
things other than racks. That's not the case in the city, so while a
dearth of bike parking on State St and elsewhere in the city is a huge
problem, at least it doesn't mean the city is likely to impound your
bike because there wasn't an open bike rack space anywhere in site of
your destination.
Speaking of which, how's that study of downtown bike parking coming along?
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
"How are we doing? Take our customer satisfaction survey at
https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/CommSol_CSSurvey "
*From:*[email protected]
[mailto:[email protected]] *On Behalf Of *Michael Rewey
*Sent:* Wednesday, May 07, 2014 6:54 PM
*To:* Bikies
*Subject:* Re: [Bikies] A lot of bike parking near University
Bookstore is going away
The mall is going to be reconstructed from Lake to Park.
http://www.cityofmadison.com/engineering/statest/
Mike Rewey
On 7 May 2014 at 16:26, Mitchell Nussbaum wrote:
> I noticed this afternoon that the bike racks along the side of University Bookstore have BIKE REMOVAL signs
posted, indicating that the racks will be removed on May 19.
>
> These racks are not very good, and bikes that are locked there stick out a few feet into Fitch Court -- not a very
good idea -- so it's not so terrible to see them go. Nonetheless,
those racks represent a lot of capacity that will be going away very
soon. Does the City or the University have any plans to replace that
capacity with something more adequate?
> _______________________________________________
> Bikies mailing list
> [email protected] <mailto:[email protected]>
> http://lists.danenet.org/listinfo.cgi/bikies-danenet.org
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