Greg Raisman of the Portland Office of Transportation takes Streetfilms on a tour of bicycle parking facilities in Portland, Oregon. Watch the video and learn the pros and cons of on street bicycle parking (a bicycle corral) vs a sheltered bicycle parking oasis. And check out this article to read about the next bicycle parking amenities in Portland. Streetfilms has documented a variety of bike parking options. At many BART stations in the Bay Area you can park in outdoor lockers or inside Bike stations. New York City has also started to explore granting more on-street space for cyclists to park like here on Bedford Avenue.
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<p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman"><i>Greg Raisman:</i>
[00:05] This is one of the locations in our city where we’ve converted
a little bit of on-street car parking to use it for a lot of on-street
bicycle parking. Before this bike parking went in, on both sides
of the street for this one block there was enough space for 25 vehicles.
Now with the conversion, there’s enough space for 65 vehicles. </font></p>
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<p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman"><i>Caroline Samponaro:</i>
[00:26] There are a lot of really great benefits about these parking
swaps, like we call them in New York City. They really enhance business.
In front of the restaurant there can be 22 bikes parked, whereas before
there were probably about two cars.</font></p>
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<p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman"><i>Richard Satnick:</i>
[00:38] We’ve always been a very bicycling oriented company, but when
they came to me with the idea of doing these corrals, it was instantaneous,
oh yeah, let’s do it. It’s been obviously very successful.
They’re very heavily used all the time, and the usual business argument
that you’ve taken away parking just doesn’t work here. </font></p>
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<p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman"><i>Caroline Samponaro:</i>
[01:00] They really stopped hitting pedestrians and cyclists.
The bike parking is on the street in a better space than on the sidewalk,
so pedestrians don’t feel like their space has to be taken away. </font></p>
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<p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman"><i>Speaker:</i> [01:09]
Every time I’ve seen those on-street bike parking they’re completely
full, like the one at Stumptown or Porcanow [sp?? 01:17] or Run Mississippi.</font></p>
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<p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman"><i>Speaker:</i> [01:18]
If it were up to me this would stretch from one bike corral to the other
and there would be nothing but bikes on this side of the street. </font></p>
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<p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman"><i>Greg Raisman:</i>
[01:25] These bike corrals or on-street bike parking are great because
they’re very low cost and easy to install. There’s no impact
on any other utilities. We don’t have to worry about pipes under
the ground or where the water’s going or anything, cos they don’t
affect any of that. They just let the water run its course down
the gutter. </font></p>
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<p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman"><i>Bill Stites:</i> [01:43]
The city does require that the businesses that have frontage to the
bike corrals are responsible for maintenance, and that’s simply because
the city equipment can’t get into this area anymore. Came over
to this corral here at 34, found it clean. So headed down to the
one that we have down at the other corner at 33<sup>rd</sup>, that wasn’t
too bad, it’s mostly just organic debris from the trees in the area. </font></p>
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<p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman"><i>Greg Raisman:</i>
[02:13] A bike oasis is where we have actually built a kerb extension
and then we’ve put a cover on it to protect it from the rain.
One of the big things it does is that with a kerb extension or street
sweepers do their normal job and it stays part of our municipal streets
cleaning program. And so by having it on a kerb extension, it’s
just a lot more natural and easier, it provides a much cleaner urban
design, we don’t have any bollards around it and that sort of thing.
And then the last thing that this does, it’s really nice is it provides
bicycle and pedestrian maps for the neighbourhood.</font></p>
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<p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman"><i>Speaker:</i> [02:44]
It’s really inviting. There’s a roof here and it’s nice
to actually have space to lock your bikes in a line instead of having
to just cluster everybody’s in a big pile. </font></p>
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<p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman"><i>Greg Raisman:</i>
[02:53] So there’s something about the bike corrals in terms of function
that I think so far they’ve been more successful in what some things
we can learn from. There’s something that’s quite empowering
about parking your bicycle on the asphalt. It’s a real equaliser.
It feels like, you know, gosh… and when I’m riding my bicycle or
I’m driving my car, my community and my city respects me equally. </font></p>
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<p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman"><i>Speaker:</i> [03:13]
Among friends of mine, more and more people are cycling and I think
that, I mean, often you’ll see like, you know, three or four city
blocks and they’ll just be one of those, you know, staple racks and
everybody just goes on the street lamps and stop signs and everything.
So, I mean, I think you could put the infrastructure and it starts to
help people, you know, get around town more. </font></p>
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<p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman"><i>Greg Raisman:</i>
[03:35] It’s really important as we go forward to find that balance
between how do we make it attractive, something we can really support
on a programmatic basis, but also make it so that we’re able to take
some risk in putting in in some of the highest demand places so that
we’re able to make conversions like this one that really build community
and business</font></p>
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