A letter of appreciation and encouragement

[lnr]

The local council has recently installed a rather fab temporary bike rack outside a busy city pub, as part of the Bike Week celebrations:

As you can see it turns one parking space for a car into secure parking for around 10 bikes. They're planning to replace it with permanent normal racks later, and say they're intending to provide an alternative parking space somewhere where there are currently double yellow lines. They invite comments to transport.delivery@cambridgeshire.gov.uk, so I decide to write and encourage them:

Dear Transport Delivery Office,

As someone who has lived in Cambridge for many years, and still works
in the city, I am writing to congratulate you on the temporary cycle
parking outside the Kingston Arms which has been installed for bike
week.  I'm delighted to hear that this will be replaced with a
permanent installation at a later date.

The pavements in this area are often fully or partially blocked by
parked bicycles, and this should help relieve the pressure
considerably, making the area much nicer for both cyclists and
pedestrians, with very little inconvenience to motorists or residents.

I'd just like to note that I don't think an alternative parking space
should be necessary in this case, especially as it's not clear where
it would be suitable.

May I also encourage you to extend this scheme to other streets, and
to consider installations outside busy shops as well as other pubs.

Yours faithfully,

Eleanor Blair

Comments

[cartesiandaemon.livejournal.com]

Oh, yay. I imagine it'll STILL be very squeezed, but that's a lot better.

[juggzy.livejournal.com]

As well, that street is actually not very populated other than with people visiting the Kingston, and it's where I had my bike stolen from last year (I'd attached it to the lampost across the street). So, good move.

[catyak]

Of course, if the cars either side parked really close then you'd have to find a large-enough gap to get onto the pavement with your bike in order to get it into the rack.

Some enterprising thief will turn up with a flatbed truck and a hoist and make off with ten bikes at a time, so the sooner it's replaced by something harder to lift, the better.

D

[lnr]

Yes, the current temporary installation does have a couple of drawbacks that a set of normal racks wouldn't.

[lnr]

Wow, I knew there was quite a lot of latent demand, but that's impressive!