You should not be locking your bike to any trees in the public right of way. The city of Madison allows locking to most anything EXCEPT trees, so long as the bike is not blocking pedestrian or vehicle access. The University System rules do not allow locking to anything but a bike rack.
Both the city and the UW system prohibit locking to trees for the same reason – you can easily damage the tree and severely shorten it’s life span. Pedals can gouge, locks can scrape bark, etc. And even if you think you’re not doing any damage because you’re being very careful, the very fact that you’re locking to a tree tells someone else that that’s ok, and chances are they’re not going to be as careful. I know as well as anyone that there’s not enough places to park bikes in the city and on campus to meet demand. Providing that parking on campus is part of my job (and we are making huge improvements on campus, though we are not yet at the point where our capacity meets demand everywhere). But that’s a reason to continue pushing the city (and landlords) for more bike parking, not a reason to lock to a tree. Imagine a city and a UW without any street trees. If we keep locking bikes to trees (especially the trees that are immature enough to easily lock to), then it won’t be that long before you don’t have to imagine that scenario. Chuck Strawser Pedestrian & Bicycle Transportation Planner Commuter Solutions UW-Madison Transportation Services Please note that my email address has changed. My new email is [email protected]<mailto:[email protected]> Visit our University Bicycle Resource Center at Helen C White: http://transportation.wisc.edu/transportation/bike_annex.aspx How are we doing? Take our customer satisfaction survey at https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/CommSol_CSSurvey From: Bikies [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Scott Maurer via Bikies Sent: Wednesday, August 31, 2016 5:11 PM To: Bikies ListServe Subject: [Bikies] Bike security fail: tree Hey All, I've locked to a tree many times and thought of this possibility depending on size of tree. This dude makes me sad... http://adventure-journal.com/2016/08/thief-cuts-down-tree-in-order-to-steal-bike/ cheers ___________________ Scott R. Maurer
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