Bikeability, Infrastructure, Schools, Bike Racks
A little bike parking inspiration today, Multnomah University just installed single-side Bike Lockers and our sleek Burnside Bike Corrals for a great multi-function long-term – short-term bike parking combo.
multimodal bike lockers are easily secured with padlocks or U-Locks
The Burnside Bike Corral is easily installed on cement surfaces with anti-theft bolts
Bike lockers and corrals make a great multi-use space
Ready for the new school year with plenty of bike parking!
Bike Racks, Bikeability, Infrastructure, Liveability, Walkability, Schools
Backless Willamette Bench: Square laser cut seat
Staple Bike racks
Staple Bike racks
Wenatchee Receptacle
Hawthorne Single Side Bike rack
A mix of bike parking creates a welcoming space for students and teachers.
Bikeability, Liveability, Walkability, Infrastructure
We recently published part one of this post—you can read that here. Today we’re highlighting one more of our favorite new infrastructure developments currently underway in Portland, and closing out this two-part discussion with an international example of carless infrastructure that combines ingenuity, sustainability, functionality and environmental considerations to really shift the thinking on the relationship between roads, ped/bike paths, and the natural world.
WHY WE’RE EXCITED ABOUT IT
This is notoriously one of the worst places in Portland to get stuck at a crossing, with freight trains sometimes resting at a full stop across the intersection for up to two hours. While this bridge can’t help those poor souls in cars, it will be equipped with stairs and elevators on both sides to ferry cyclists and pedestrians safely across. A former crossing had to be removed during the construction of the Orange Line, and this return has been a long time coming. Currently your best bet for getting across the tracks is at SE Milwaukie Ave., where it splits into 11th and 12th. But, again, stopped trains are an issue. Cyclists are often seen climbing over the couplings of active freight cars—what? People. Let’s please stop doing this. Delays are such a pain point to commuters and businesses alike that a development group in a nearby building built a uni-functional website specifically to track whether or not a train is blocking the intersection. At press time, isatrainblocking11th.com reported: “NO.”
WHY IT’S IMPORTANT
This crossing will unite the busy greenways of Gideon Street and Clinton Street, and give cyclists an alternative to climbing between railcars (again, let’s don’t) or waiting endlessly for the intersection to be clear. It will also effectively finish off the Clinton to the River project, a mostly-complete 2.8-mile bicycle route that’s been in the works for nearly a decade. Another example of Portland’s ongoing commitment to reshaping how the city handles vehicles, bicycles, and the relationship between the two.
While Portland keeps finding new ways to route bike and pedestrian traffic across bodies of water, through wildlife preserves, and over busy roadways, the Netherlands recently began construction on a bridge that will span all three, and more. There’s so much to love about this project we’re not sure where to start.
The Blauwe Loper—or “Blue Carpet”—will be the longest bike/ped bridge in Europe and one of the longest in the world. At completion of phase one it will span 800 meters, with plans to ultimately extend it to more than a kilometer. (Technically, China’s Bicycle Skyway holds the title, knifing through the congested core of Xiamen and clocking an impressive 7.6 km—almost 5 miles—of continuous dedicated bike lanes. It’s arguably more of an elevated bicycle highway than a true bridge, but who are we to argue.)
This news should come as no surprise; in the Netherlands, bicycling is a universally-enjoyed pastime and primary form of transportation. It’s often reported that there are more bicycles than people in the Netherlands, and over 32,000 km (about 20,000 miles) of dedicated bike path crisscross the region’s mostly-flat terrain, making it the perfect setting for a bike-first culture.
Tantamount to pedestrians and bicyclists, one of the top design considerations for the bridge was a much longer-tenured inhabitant of the region: bats. The Blauwe Loper will be painted a “bat-friendly” green and outfitted with solar-powered LEDs, as an aid for bat colonies to avoid the bridge and navigate from their habitat in a nearby park to the feeding grounds at Oldambtmeer lake and back home again.
Lastly, builders of the Blauwe Loper claim that the structure, built mostly of resilient Central African hardwood sourced in Gabon, will last at least 80 years. As project leader Reinder Lanting told a local daily newspaper, “This bridge is not going to rot. That is because it is technically well designed. The wood is not pressed together but has a sort of venting system.”
We love the ingenuity and radical thinking at work here. You can learn more about the project at Blauwestad.com.
Bikeability, Liveability, Walkability, Infrastructure
The City of Portland is constantly working to improve traffic flows, making it easier for all of us to get where we’re going. You can spot efforts across the city marked by bright-green painted lanes and cute little bicycle-shaped traffic signals that remind us of novelty pasta. But the net effect is much larger than these individual efforts. Each new bicycle lane and neighborhood greenway represents the effort to reduce carbon emissions and encourage active forms of transportation. We think that’s worth celebrating. In this two-part post, we’re highlighting some of our favorite projects currently in the works: three new carless bridges in Portland (plus a bonus bridge in the Netherlands!) that represent an easier way to get across town on two wheels, and much more.
WHY WE’RE EXCITED ABOUT IT
The Blumenauer Bridge is part of Portland’s Green Loop initiative, an ambitious plan to create six miles of connected park space through the heart of the city. The Green Loop is designed to provide access to local businesses and services by foot, bike or mobility device (like e-scooters). The Green Loop is a tangible symbol of Portland's commitment to improving access to parks, nature, and alternative transportation, and this bridge will be a linchpin of that effort. You can check out an earlier post we published on the Green Loop here.
WHY IT’S IMPORTANT
Anyone who walks or bikes in the area knows how desperately this solution is needed. Currently, your best route over the interstate is the NE 12th overpass, a heavily-trafficked stretch of pocked pavement. Other options are the MLK and Grand Avenue connections that make up 99E—literally a highway. Less than ideal.
With plenty of bike lanes and neighborhood greenways weaving their way through the inner-eastside, this bridge feels like the missing link and a welcomed addition to the area. Ground has been broken and construction is slated for completion in the spring of 2021. The bridge will be 24 feet wide to accommodate emergency response vehicles if necessary. It will feature a 10-foot pedestrian path, a 14-foot two-way bicycle track and, according to Commissioner Chloe Eudaly, “come hell or high water, somewhere on this bridge, there will be a bow tie.” We love that.
WHY WE’RE EXCITED ABOUT IT
Not only does this project consist of a carless bridge over the 405, it’s become part of a larger effort known as the Flanders Bikeway. In total, the Bikeway is planned to transform NW Flanders Street from 24th all the way to Naito Parkway, including the Crossing. Bike and pedestrian traffic will be prioritized while vehicle flow is limited to discourage cut-through traffic. The project has loomed on the City of Portland’s radar for years, stuck in priority purgatory, but construction is finally slated to begin this year. If it’s done well, this project can act as a blueprint and a catalyst for Portland to prioritize alternative modes of transportation across the city.
WHY IT’S IMPORTANT
Currently the best way to cross the 405 by bike in that area is Everett Street (heading east) and Glisan (going west). The two overpasses make up the heart of a busy freeway ramp network, and even with improvements over the last few years, neither offers much in the way of bike or ped facilities. With initiatives like Better Naito Forever and the previously-mentioned Green Loop also in the works, the bridge and bikeway can connect retail, dining and professional offices in Northwest to the Waterfront and the rest of the city.
A Brief Aside
We’re in the middle of a global pandemic. There’s plenty of discussion happening on the subject and we don’t feel like it’s our place to weigh in. We want to applaud healthcare professionals and essential workers, and thank everyone for doing their part to help us all get through this.
Bike Racks, Bikeability, Liveability, Walkability
We’re proud to announce 86 of our stainless steel Arc bike racks are part of the Nicollet Mall revitalization in Minneapolis, Minnesota. We’re doubly proud to add that the Minneapolis Downtown Improvement District have continued to install a few more Arc’s every month or so since 2016.
David Sokol of Architectural Record writes:
“Today, this downtown zone is being revitalized as a mixed-use neighborhood, and Minneapolis is again reshaping its urban fabric by implementing a redesign of the Nicollet Mall, led by the landscape architecture and urban-design firm James Corner Field Operations, with lighting by New York–based Tillotson Design Associates (TDA) and local expertise contributed by the notable Snow Kreilich Architects and landscape architect Coen+Partners.”
Read more and see images of our Arc racks here:
https://www.architecturalrecord.com/articles/14200-nicollet-mall-in-minneapolis
Bike Rooms, Bikeability, Custom Work, Liveability, Walkability
If you read our blog, then you might already know that Amsterdam has some of the world’s best-designed bike infrastructure, which helps explain why over half of all commutes in the Dutch city are by bike. This has lots of benefits—less traffic congestion, better health, safer streets—but it also poses a surprising problem: where to put all those bikes when people aren’t riding them.
In residential neighborhoods, the solution is bike racks and corrals, often mounted on sidewalk bump-outs in quiet side streets.
But what about places where everybody wants to park? When Amsterdammers take the train, go to the library, work in a big office park, or see a movie or concert, they often arrive by bike. At places this popular, a few racks won’t cut it.
Enter the underground bike garage. Most Dutch cities have a few of them; Amsterdam has over 20. To American ears, it might sound extreme to dig out a garage just for bikes, but it’s not really that different from the bike rooms that office and apartment buildings in the US increasingly offer. In both cases, the idea is simple: provide a safe, easily accessible, weather-protected place to park, and people are more likely to make biking a habit, and not take up so much expensive car parking. In the Netherlands, the logic (and benefits) are just scaled up to the city level.
Here’s one example of a gemeentelijke fietsenstallingen (municipal bike parking) garage. This one’s next to Paradiso, a legendary concert hall and nightclub located in a converted church next to the Singelgracht canal.
A lot of thought goes into the design of garages like these, starting with getting in and out. Larger garages often have ramps or moving walkways, but this is a relatively small fietsenstallingen, so you take the stairs. Notice, though, that there are small channels on either side to roll your bike down.
On closer inspection, these turn out to be more than just ramps. The “downhill” channel on the right side is lined with stiff bristles that grip your bike tire and slow its decent. The “uphill” one is actually a tiny conveyor belt! — simply roll your bike onto the yellow strip, lock your brakes, and it automatically starts moving, carrying your bike up the steps while you walk alongside.
Because space is at a premium, nearly all garages use double-decker parking, with an elevated row of racks that slide out and tilt down on a small pneumatic piston. This allows for incredible density: Amsterdam’s newest bike garage in the Strawinskylaan office district holds 3750 bikes, but fits underneath a road overpass.
Most garages are staffed and guarded, and charge a (very small) fee for secure, overnight parking, which you pay with a debit or transit card upon check-out. The larger ones also offer bike repair stands, in case you need to make an adjustment or fix a flat before heading out.
And some of them are quite beautiful.
Interested in adding a little Dutch-style convenience to your office, residential, or municipal development? Our range of racks and furniture is extensive, and we customize for just about any situation.
Bike Racks, Bikeability, Liveability, Walkability
Every city has orphaned lots: those islands of land stranded by an unfortunate intersection, too small or oddly-shaped to build on. But while some linger as undignified patches of asphalt or concrete, others become true neighborhood amenities, often because of smart use of street furniture and bike infrastructure.
Here in the US where uniform grids reign supreme, a triangular plot of land is pretty rare. But in European cities, defined by centuries of overlapping urban design, they’re everywhere. Lille, a city in northern France that we’ve written about before, is no exception. Here’s one cut-off triangle, in the working-class Moulins neighborhood:
What potential do you see in that little triangle? A park? A bikeshare station? A patch of calm in the urban fabric that draws people together? How about all three?
Here’s what it looks like at ground level:
This little scrap of land, it turns out, has a lot going on: shaded benches, a line of bike racks, a heavily-used bikeshare station, and a perimeter of bollards to protect the whole thing. What could’ve been an urban afterthought is, instead, a neighborhood gathering point, serving commuters in the morning and evening, and friends and families in the afternoon and evening.
It also makes nearby outdoor seating much more attractive—here’s a mid-morning view from “Le Triporteur”, a restaurant/cafe across the street:
By 7pm, that patch of sidewalk will be packed with local residents, eating frites and drinking Belgian beer, despite heavy traffic on the major avenue right out front.
It’s a scene replicated all over town, and in countless other European cities: find an orphaned bit of land, protect it from traffic, add features that invite bikers and pedestrians, and you quickly have a little slice of community, that entices people outside and into local businesses.
Here’s another example, along Rue Solferino, a busy street about a mile away:
What was just a strip too narrow to build on instead becomes a lovely, bollard-protected public square, enhanced by trees, art, and seating for a facing cafe
Obviously, there’s more to these wonderful public spaces than just some bollards and a couple of benches, but they couldn’t exist without them. Infrastructure does more than just provide a place to sit. It also defines a space and lays a foundation. And what these tiny parks—and thousands of others like them—clearly show, is that once that foundation is laid, amazing things can happen in the most neglected places.
Bike Racks, Bikeability, Liveability
Rack Locator
Nathaniel Burnett, cycling enthusiast and founder of The Bicycle Parking Project, hopes that his app will eliminate one excuse people have for not riding their bikes. The app utilizes both external data sources and user-generated content to create a map of existing bike racks. Users can plan ahead or instantly locate bike parking near their destination without scrambling to find a secure rack on foot.
Publicly available data from many metropolitan areas including New York, San Francisco, and Chicago have already been imported into the app, populating several thousand bike racks per city. App users have occasionally supplied city data, too. A cyclist in Omaha, Nebraska, wanted local racks to be included on the map. He contacted the city to request the required information and forwarded the resulting data file to Nathaniel. Omaha’s bike racks were on the map later that same day.
Users can add individual bike racks by quickly snapping and submitting a photo through the app. The new location marker and corresponding photo detail is displayed in real time, though Nathaniel monitors all submissions and deletes any that aren’t legitimate. User-added rack locations have popped up across the globe, including cities in Europe, India, Australia, and South America. Users can also report location markers where the rack is missing, typically due to an error in the data file.
DIY Rack Mapping
Adding the rack photo to the map
A pin indicates the rack has been added
Before creating his own, Nathaniel tried using another bike parking app. He was disappointed that the new racks he submitted were never incorporated into the map and wanted his version to empower fellow cyclists to actively develop this community resource. The more users interact with the app, the more refined and helpful the map will become.
For cyclists who don’t need help finding parking, the app has one additional tool: it allows users to drop a pin to mark the location of their bike. In areas where bike racks are prevalent or in unfamiliar neighborhoods, this feature ensures riders don’t forget where they parked.
The Bicycle Parking Project app is available for both iOS and Android. While the number of downloads is still in the thousands, the positive feedback Nathaniel has received from users encourages him to continue the work. As the map becomes more comprehensive in local areas, it may also become a resource that city officials and business owners utilize to identify where there is an absence of bicycle parking.
Header Image Courtesy CC: Diane Yee
Bike Racks, Bike Rooms, Bike Theft, Custom Work, Liveability, Bikeability
(Image courtesy peloton Apartments)
For the non-bike-nerds out there, a peloton is a group of cyclists riding in tight formation, to reduce air drag during a race or group ride. It might seem like an odd name for a brand new, somewhat luxurious housing development whose tenants are more likely to be programmers than bike mechanics, but this is Portland after all, and the bike-friendly lifestyle takes all kinds. It helps that the Peloton’s three buildings are flanked on either side by two of the busiest bike routes in the city: in warmer months, rush hour traffic on North Williams and its southbound sister North Vancouver is upwards of 40% bicycles.
Santoprene protects on the Burnside racks.
So in addition to three rooftop decks and some beautifully tricked-out common areas, the Peloton also serves as a kind of showcase of great bike amenities. There’s a whole ground-level bike parking area in the main building, equipped with dozens of Huntco’s Burnside staple racks, their elegant rectangular tubing softened on the edges with Santoprene bumpers, to protect delicate paint jobs. And set back from the woonerf that divides the complex (a delightful Dutch-style alleyway, accessible to the public) is a protected bike room with more than 200 Huntco Hawthorne wall-mounted racks, perfect for that second (or third) bike you don’t use quite as often.
BV-1 bike lockers and Burnside racks
Banking on the idea that several tenants will have bikes that they treasure and pamper, there’s an in-building Bike Club room with bench-mounted repair stands and a variety tools, and 10 gorgeous, mint-colored BV-1 bike lockers. Between these amenities, even the most road-obsessed tenant is going to feel well taken care of — an unusual value proposition for an apartment building.
The net effect of all these amenities, so thoughtfully installed, is a sense that this is a place that really means what it says. There are plenty of new apartment buildings using bike-centric imagery or messaging to sound more current, or more eco-friendly, but for anyone really making a go of active transportation as a daily habit, this kind of infrastructure is more than just a nice afterthought — it’s a game changer.
Bike Racks, Liveability, Bike Rooms
When Colorado-based New Belgium Brewing decided to expand operations to Asheville, North Carolina, they knew bikes were going to be involved before they even got started. The brewery’s flagship beer is called Fat Tire, after all, in reference to the European bike journeys that first inspired its founders, and bikes have featured prominently on its labels and marketing efforts for years. What non-Coloradans might not know is that Fort Collins, where the brewery has its headquarters, is one of the bike-friendliest cities in the nation, a fact that New Belgium has both embraced and encouraged since its founding 25 years ago
In addition to brewing beer in Asheville, New Belgium also constructed a 141,000 square foot distribution facility – essentially an enormous refrigerated warehouse – that employs dozens of local residents and earned LEED Platinum certification shortly after opening in 2015. The Huntco-built Fin bike racks out front were part of that, but they also send a message: that bikes and beer are part of a happy, healthy life, and that New Belgium wants to see more of both.
a long-time employee who moved out to Asheville after the expansion. He goes on to explain that Asheville’s improving bike infrastructure, combined with New Belgium company incentives (employees get a free bike after one year on staff), has attracted workers inclined toward active transportation, and inspired others to give it a try.
Having a great-looking place to lock up when you get to work certainly doesn’t hurt either.
Photography: Oppenheim Photo
Bike Racks, Custom Work, Liveability
“We already had a bunch of racks piled in a storage area, and realized there was a lot we could probably do with them.”
old racks, removed for construction
What about bike racks though? Clint Culpepper, the Bicycle Program Coordinator at Portland State University, faced this question a few months back, when a series of construction projects required removal of dozens of old staple racks. “We already had a bunch of racks piled in a storage area, and realized there was a lot we could probably do with them.”
In the early days of on-campus bike parking (more than, say, 10 years ago), racks were bolted into the concrete individually — a pretty labor-intensive approach when you’ve got thousands of bikes to accommodate. These days, the Bike Corral is the gold standard: four staple racks welded to two strips of plate steel for perfect positioning, better security, and faster installation.
Because most of the cost of a bike rack is in the steel, reuse makes a lot of sense, both environmentally and economically
prepped for fresh coating
“We basically called up Casey [Rice, at Huntco],” says Culpepper, “and said ‘Can you take care of this for us?’” Over the course of a few weeks, we trucked over 100 used racks of various sizes, shapes and states of repair into our shop. We burned off the old chipped paint, cut off the mounting flanges, welded them into corrals, and sent them off for powder-coating.
The result? 40 pristine corrals of consistent height and shape, in flawless PSU green, ready for installation. The cost? 40% less than buying new ones, not to mention massive energy savings by keeping the old ones out of the scrapyard.
recycled, Refreshed and ready to roll
a new life, as corrals
Liveability, Bike Sharing, Walkability
This being Huntco, what we’ve noticed about Lille, even more than the beautiful old cobblestone streets or the legendary beer (it’s only 30km from Belgium) is the bollards. Like a lot of mid-sized French cities, Lille is a great place to walk and bike, with a wonderfully rich street life — and one of the reasons why is extensive and thoughtful use of bollards, in ways that might be surprising to folks in North America.
The Place du Général de Gaulle is a good example. Usually just called the Grand Place (“big plaza”) by locals, this is a broad, brick-paved square fronted by bookstores, cafes, shops and a historic theater. It’s the undisputed heart of the city, frequented by thousands of people a day who come there to meet, shop, drink or just hang out. It also has a street snaking right through the middle of it, and a 422-space parking garage underneath.
Using dozens of slender, elegant bollards at about 8 foot intervals, the city has demarcated a “street” that directs traffic through the plaza, while making it clear that cars are sharing the space with (far more numerous) people walking and biking. For pedestrians, the bollards just barely interfere with the flow of foot traffic, indicating where to watch out for vehicles but keeping the space permeable.
Just north of the Grand Place is another smart use of bollards along Rue Faidherbe, a short, majestic boulevard connecting the plaza to the city’s busiest train station.
In this case, the bollards line the one-way street (with two-way bike lanes), protecting broad sidewalks full of shoppers while making it easy to cross at any point. Strategic gaps in the bollards define intersections with side streets, funneling cars in a predictable way without impeding walkers — and leaving plenty of room for the city’s cafe culture to thrive.
Like the bollards that Huntco manufactures, these are unobtrusive enough that they become part of the urban fabric, not an interruption to it — in fact, they might even be a bit beloved.
The city also uses different types of bollards to lend a sense of place to different areas. Here’s a different type of bollard as you head toward the are de Lille Europe — the newer train station where the Eurostar from London stops.
You’d be hard pressed to find a city anywhere in the US that uses bollards so prolifically, or applies them so expressly toward directing cars, rather than just protecting pedestrian spaces. It’s a refreshing approach that could have some real impact in cities here, especially ones hoping to spur the kind of placemaking that’s clearly so good for business in cities like Lille.
Oh, and in case you’re wondering, the word bollard is French! And if Lille is any indication, France may well be the bollard’s homeland.
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Story and photos by Huntco team member and world traveler Carl Alviani.
Bike Sharing, Liveability, Bike Racks
One of the things we love about making bike racks, street furniture and other public amenities is how they can transform streetscapes, letting people know that this is a destination, not just a thruway. And one of the best examples of it just hit the streets of Portland, in the form of a new bikeshare system called “Biketown”.
The bikes and the racks that make up the Biketown system aren’t just reliable and well-designed; they’re also orange. Bright, eye-catching, unignorable orange. The bold color (and the odd name) both stem from the fact that Nike (Oregon’s most famous company) kicked in several million dollars to make it happen. And no, in case you’re wondering, it’s not pronounced “Bikey-town” -- though plenty of us call it that anyway.
Regardless of how you say it, the system’s impossible to miss. Driving through the city’s downtown or east side, chances are good that you’ll catch a glimpse of orange every minute or two, and the overall effect is powerful. Portland’s got plenty of bike infrastructure, of course, but if you’re not riding a bike, it’s easy to ignore. A 60-foot long row of bright orange fins, on the other hand, is a quietly exuberant reminder that bikes are part of what makes the city – as ordinary and indispensable as bus stops, storefronts and parking lots.
It’s exciting because it means that everyone who travels through the city must, sooner or later, acknowledge the existence of biking here, not as a temporary anomaly, but a permanent fixture. It’s the sort of subtle shift in perception that organized rides and awareness campaigns try to engineer, but rarely succeed at. A similar shift happened when NYC’s Citibike program launched, helping to shepherd along a citywide embrace of bikes, bike lanes and bike commuting that eventually earned it the title of Best Cycling City in the US.
Now, Huntco didn’t make these racks, but we love them just the same. They’re elegant, they’re sturdy, they look great. And more important, they make the city better for everyone.
Liveability, Bike Racks, Bike Rooms
The Emery, a 7-story apartment building in Portland’s rapidly growing South Waterfront neighborhood, wears its eco credentials on its sleeve. A tight cluster of high-efficiency apartments, located next to a streetcar, light rail and aerial tram station and a major bike route, the Emery is actively marketed toward young professional singles and couples interested in active transportation and low-car living. For a building like this, a great bike facility is a necessity, not an amenity.
· 1061 Square Feet, with plenty of circulating room
· 160 Wall-mounted Stirrup Racks, black powder coat finish
· Keycard Access and 24/7 security camera monitoring
An additional 20 Stirrup Racks are mounted in a publicly accessible hallway next to the bike room, providing covered parking for visitors and employees of the restaurants on the Emery’s ground floor. In smart, modern buildings like the Emery, every bike gets a civilized place to park.
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IMAGES VIA www.theemerypdx.com
For a community so perfectly suited to low-car living, this is kind of a problem. According to local group Bike Milwaukie, the number of families using bikes to get around has shot up in recent years, but they have to head north for repairs and tune-ups. So Bike Milwaukie had an idea: they might not be able to start up a new bike shop, but wouldn’t a publicly accessible bike repair station be the next best thing?
Through a successful Kickstarter project, Bike Milwaukie and 33 (mostly local) donors banded together to raise $2800 for a high-quality bike repair stand, built by Minneapolis-based Bike Fixtation. The stand, purchased through Huntco, features Allen keys, screwdrivers, tire levers, pedal, headset and cone wrenches, and a heavy duty pump: everything you need to conduct basic maintenance and quick fixes. Better yet, the organizers at Bike Milwaukie worked with the local government to get the stand installed in a high profile location right in front of City Hall.
Even though we didn’t build this particular piece of infrastructure, it’s nice to be reminded how the right amenity in the right place can do more than just fill a need — it can help focus an entire community.
According to some recent articles, walkability is now the single most desirable trait for house hunters in US cities, and it only seems to be getting more desirable.
This shouldn’t be all that surprising. After all, Millennials are now the largest generation in the country, they’re heading into their settling-down years, and they’re famously less interested in driving than previous generations. On top of that, you have millions of aging Boomers looking to downsize, often in places where they won’t have to spend as much time in their cars. This doesn’t have to mean a city–lots of suburbs are getting more pedestrian-friendly–but it does mean distances short enough to make walking a viable alternative to driving.
But it also means infrastructure: sidewalks, shade trees, street-oriented storefronts, and--you guessed it–site furnishings. Installing benches, tables, bollards and bike parking doesn’t automatically make a block a walker’s paradise, but you’d be hard-pressed to find a walkable neighborhood without them. Besides giving you a place to rest your bones after a long stroll, street furniture also sends a powerful message: that people are supposed to be here, that walking is a viable form of transport.
This may be why so many of our site furnishings projects over the last few years have been part of placemaking initiatives. As cities around the country double down on their established neighborhoods, they often look to site furnishings as a way to kick-off the reinvestment process, in a pragmatic and highly visible way. Huntco has been fortunate to be a part of several of them, often with great results:
In progress, At the shop
The Feral Cat Coalition of Oregon (FCCO) in Portland is a great volunteer-based, veterinarian-founded organization that takes in thousands of stray cats every year from around the region for spaying or neutering, all at no charge. They’d originally wanted a couple of standard Sol bike racks for their their new building, but realized during planning that it was also an opportunity to get their message out to the neighborhood in a friendly, playful way. So this is what they had us build instead:
Install in progress at the new FCCO building
The racks (which work just like a typical Sol rack) are instantly recognizable as cat faces, but with a unique detail: the flat-topped ear on one side is what’s called an “ear tip”, and it’s a standard indication that a stray has already been spayed or neutered. So in a way, the racks help spread the word about spaying and neutering without saying a word.
Because we do all of our fabrication here in the US, Huntco is able take on all kinds of custom orders, often on short notice and based on simple, straightforward descriptions from the client or architect.
Besides being a lot of fun for us — who wouldn’t want to fabricate an enormous cat face out of powder-coated steel? — they also add unmistakable character to the streetscape, and help organizations announce themselves in a way that’s a lot more approachable and distinctive than another sign or billboard.
This project was in Portland, but people are looking for secure, functional bike parking in cities all over the US. Here’s hoping more of it has a face that makes you smile.
See more examples of custom bike rack and site furnishings here.
Cities nationwide are implementing public and private programs, each with a different way of payment and different share policies. The question for bike share planners: Is there a simple method for people to share bikes?
The Portland program, set up at Oregon Health & Science University (OHSU) campus, is the latest site to try out the bike share model that was originally developed at Intel® and has been further explored by the Open Bike Initiative.
Even though a high tech company designed the system–there is not a lot of tech involved–making the system simple and easy to use. The Go By Bike share at OHSU uses distinctive blue bikes, blue metal bike racks by Huntco, and a combination U-lock for secure bike lockup.
OHSU employees and students, who register with an OHSU email, can choose a bike from the rack and text a number to receive the bike’s specific U-lock combination. Users can access the system within a day of signup.
The open-source lock-based system lowers the barrier of capital startup costs, which for Docking systems can be out of reach for smaller budgets. Docking stations are around $50,000 each, require a power source, and the bikes must be locked to a slot in the dock. Kiel Johnson, the owner of Go By Bike, estimates that this 2-node, 13-bike system costs under $9,000 to set up. He also notes "Setting up the technical part of the system costs $900, the only other part are custom racks and bikes + maintenance…great for businesses and campuses."
Using locks facilitates a more conventional bike usage style. Cyclists can ride and run errands as they wish, without having to worry about finding a specific docking station while using the borrowed bike to avoid overtime fees.
Docking stations can be necessary where urban bike parking is sparse or inconsistent. These docking stations are a way to claim public space, and ensure a safe location out of high traffic areas. This is less of an issue when an area has plenty of space in the form of protected racks and lockup areas.
It is yet to be seen if docks or locks are the better long-term answer. The appropriateness of each structure will vary from city to city and will depend on the existing views regarding bikes, infrastructure, and political disposition.
Starting in the summer of 2016, Portland, Oregon will experiment with a hybrid of dock and lock methods. The large-scale 75-station/750-cycle system, run by Motivate (of CitiBike fame) will feature credit card payment machines at bike drop-off/pick-up locations. The custom bikes come with smart locks and can be parked at any rack for the duration of the cycle trip. Bikes will need to be returned to a Motivate station when the cyclist is finished with their excursion.
Smaller, DIY operators that are interested in providing low-maintenance/-infrastructure bike shares have the potential to crop up all over Portland. Neighborhood associations, facility managers, small businesses, campus associations, city councils, and hospitality ventures have a vested interest in promoting bike share systems.
The Ace Hotel, a Portland fixture, has started its own bike share program and offers house bikes to borrow for free, or hotel patrons can rent custom made cycles (by Jordan Hufnagel) for a reasonable price. Needless to say, having your brand roll around the city can’t be bad for business.
Whether bike shares come from large corporate ventures, or DIY small business; regardless of which method, docks or locks, are used; it is clear that with the rapid growth in Portland proper and the nation’s other cities, there is a need for accessible and affordable transportation.
