Sustainability That Looks as Good as It Feels

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Karl Miller Center

Portland State University just celebrated the grand opening of the Karl Miller Center, a state-of-the art facility featuring a bright, open atrium. This eye-catching building is a campus jewel, so the bike racks slated for installation right outside need to look the part. 

Clint Culpepper, the Bicycle Program Coordinator at PSU, could have purchased brand new racks to install, but utilizing refurbished bike racks better aligns with the university’s focus on sustainability. “Nothing would make me feel worse than turning a bunch of bike racks that were totally usable and serviceable into metal recycling just to buy brand new ones,” he said. Last year Clint enlisted the services of Huntco Site Furnishings to transform dozens of old, beat up staple racks into freshly painted bike corrals, and he decided it was time to refurbish a second batch.

Moving the racks into position

Prep for powdercoat: Sandblasting

Powder coat: Layer 1

Powder coat: Layer 1

Powder coat: Layer 2

Into the curing oven

Prepped for shipping

From Clint’s perspective, the hardest part of the process is ensuring there is adequate capacity for bike parking while the old racks are removed and refreshed. The rest is as easy as making a phone call. Huntco picks up piles of assorted staple racks, sorts them, and welds matching racks onto sets of rails to make bike corrals. Fresh powder coating is applied and then the corrals are delivered back to PSU, looking good as new and ready for installation.

The updated bike corrals don’t just benefit campus cyclists. “Everyone on campus likes it when the bike racks look nice,” Clint reports. Not every user of a building wants to have a bike rack sitting right outside the front door, but there’s less resistance when the racks look good. So when the next batch of refurbished racks is delivered in a few weeks, rest assured that the Karl Miller Center will get the dazzling accessories it deserves.

All Photos:  Thomas Teal 

What’s French for Bollard?

We’re in France this week! Well, one of our team is anyway, spending some time with family in the friendly northern college town of Lille.

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.

So how do open up a big, public space to cars without turning your beloved Place into a parking lot? In Lille, you do it with bollards.

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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. 

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For drivers, the message is clear: proceed to the underground parking lot, or keep moving, slowly, until you’re clear of the shared space. 

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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. 

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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. 

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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. 

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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.

Portland’s Turning Orange

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.

Learning to (Bike) Share: Exploring Multi-User Cycling

Adding a bike share system is an excellent way for any major metro to cut down on traffic, add easy travel options for tourists and city dwellers alike, and boost local economy. 

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?

Huntco Site Furnishings and Go By Bike Make it Easy
 

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.  

Go By Bike stand image courtesy: gobybikepdx.com

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. 

Go By Bike U-Lock image courtesy: bikeportland.org

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."

Locks vs. Docks

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. 

Image courtesy: Adam Fagen/cc/flickr

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. 

Portland-wide Bike Share

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.  

DIY Bike Share? 

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.

Photo Courtesy: ACE Hotel

Envisioning the Future

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.