BIKEPGH MESSAGE BOARD ARCHIVE

true, parking meters are bike racks...if you only have a u-lock. they don't allow people with chains or cable locks to easily use them because you can lift them over the head of the parking meter. they also don't support bikes very well. some cities use parking meters with loops attached to them to help provide support as well as providing an enclosed space for cables/chains.

with that said, i'm personally not a fan of advertising, and think it's ugly.

- the ads are getting money for the the city/ parking authority right?

would they buy these with some sort of restricted money (like a government grant "for bike racks") and then get a revenue out of it?

it seems to me that it was somebody's stupid idea to put an ad on a meter then somebody ws like "hey cities can buy more of them if they get grant money to pay for them if we call them 'bike racks'".

lame

Wait, parking meters ARE bike racks?? I've seen a couple of different bikes around town with giant orange you're-not-supposed-to-chain-to-this stickers on their seat... Does everyone (meaning city employees) realize meters are bike racks?

i'm also concerned about the fact that this issue might be moot soon as the city converts more and more meters to those new fangled ones that are in oakland.

just think how hard it's going to be to park a bike then if there aren't regular racks in place, but i guess that's a non-sequitor

All the fancy bus shelters with backlit advertising were free to the port authority, Peduto is suggesting a similar agreement for the bolt on advert sign/bike rack. Why would it be a bad idea when it's free to install and maintain, and it's useful to us?

My reaction:

http://ferrency.blogspot.com/2009/01/bad-bike-racks.html

As for supporting your bicycle when leaning against a parking meter: Lean your seat against the meter, and then backpedal until the meter-side pedal is in the "up" position and hits the parking meter pole. Then, the bike can't roll forward or backwards and tip over.

That is, unless you're on a fixie or a coaster brake, in which case you can't backpedal, so you're just screwed.

Alan

Sloaps - a bad idea for a few reasons.

- it does nothing for us that a parking meter doesnt already do. If anything, it is less secure.

- those in charge can claim that they have done something bicycle friendly, which it isnt. I can lock my bicycle to a billboard with the right lock, it doesnt make it a bike rack does it?

- advertising is an eyesore.

Awhile back a company was offering to buy small towns' police cars when they couldnt afford them, but had to outfit them totally with advertisements (think nascar)... why dont we do that?

Why dont we sell the skyline of our city to a few giant healthcare providers.... oh wait.

Adding ads to parking meters will not add to the availability of bicycle parking so I'm a bit curious what Bill Peduto hopes to accomplish. Does he simply not understand bicycle parking? Didn't he get burned badly enough over the Lamar LED billboard advertising fiasco? Is he so intent on getting something for nothing that he doesn't realize that the something he wants isn't necessary?

I'm pretty sure Bill wasn't in favor of the L.E.D. billboard downtown.

The belief may be that bike-unfriendly people will be placated if the city can claim direct revenue from something bike-related. "We got $xxxx.xx last year from having bike parking facilities!"

Personally, I think the idea sucks syphilitic donkey dong.

Peduto was fighting for and has been promoting alternative modes of commuting (biking, walking, mass transit) in pittsburgh for a number of years. It's his legislation that will make the installation of bike racks within the public right of way super easy now. This is just another idea.

You have an issue with it? Call him: 412-255-2133

He's probably the most cordial and welcoming to criticism than any other council person.

just as a correction, the current legislation was actually introduced by the mayor via the new bike/ped coordinator steve patchan.

bill helped with a previous legislation in 2004 that actually made it legal for bike racks to be installed. he did do a ton of work on that, but i think that the political climate at the time, namely resistance from ex council gene riccardi caused the legislation to be watered down requiring a TON of hoops to jump thru.

Definate kudos to peduto on that one, but the current legislation is the mayor

> I'm pretty sure Bill wasn't in favor of the L.E.D. billboard downtown.

Yea, but he got sued for that. Kind of confusing why he would oppose an ugly advertising sign in one context but support ugly advertising signs in this context.

Parking Meter Bike Rack

http://flickr.com/photos/insidestory/191011847/

Another Parking Meter Bike Rack

http://flickr.com/photos/mobikefed/238906558/

Yest another Parking Meter Bike Rack

http://flickr.com/photos/oakparkcycleclub/2836916774/

A Parking Meter/Bike Rack/Ad Rack US Patent 7,093,724

http://gen-eric.com/patents/images/us7093724.gif

The racks in and of themselves are nice but tying them to advertising still turns me off. Bicycles are part of a quality of life spectrum. Bikes are a plus to that quality. Advertising is a minus and I don't think I'd trade the small plus for parking meter bike racks for the minus of pervasive advertising.

This one is my favorite of this style. http://flickr.com/photos/oakparkcycleclub/2836916774/

Someplace around here has the parking meters hooked up to light poles making it impossible to use as a bike rack (with a U-Lock) Oh yeah, it is Mt. Oliver. (I go to Miller's Hardware up there for stainless steel bolts)

The parking meters in Oakland at least look like they have a nut and bolt through their base so they'd be removable. Is it actually that easy to remove one?

Alan, I dont know about meters, but in "big cities" people undo the bolts on street signs so they can just lift them up in 2 seconds to ride away on somebody's bike after they park it there. I had af riend visiting shocked that I would lock my bike to one.

That's definitely the case with the street signs here. I have a friend who had the key break off in her lock; her dad came out the next day to rescue the bike and just took off the sign in a couple of seconds. I generally avoid signs for that reason. I think they might do more than just put a bolt through the meter, although last Sunday in Oakland makes it clear that parking meters are removable too.

"what we got here is a failure to communicate"

Alan: there was that thread a long time ago about

the bike that was locked on penn ave at 39th with

STI shifters for like a month and people took the

wheels off of it cause they didnt want it to be

stolen.

I walked down to it after like a month and just

literally lifted the sign out of the ground. It was

like that the whole time and nobody took the bike.

Then the dude came to my house to pick it up and

bitched at me for doing it. Awesome!

i didn't know he bitched at you for that!!

what could he have possibly been mad about?

Why not instead of taking something that can already be locked to and changing it to accommodate advertising, they add new racks with ads.

I am not against most advertising. Everyone is selling something-idea, product, or otherwise, its something.

I would completely support a company coming in, installing multiple-bike racks throughout the city with advertising. I just think the meter idea is kind of pointless.

How about bike shelters? Lockers? OR a Cycle Center like in Chicago? We could have the "Wendy's Cycle Center", or even better, the "Whole Foods Cycle Center". I think a lot less people would complain.

I am pretty sure most of you have a bike that has an advertisement on it.

all good points.

hell, they even have those crappy "pedestrian maps" all over the city.

Winnepeg has ad based racks and they're really ugly IMO. Those cycle centers are amazing, but would cost a lot of money to get off the ground.

I would definitely be into something like this on our streets:

ok, so you can't link a picasa img on here i guess...

http://picasaweb.google.com/bikepgh/PortlandBikePedInfrastructure#5232916975541940370

Louisville is using public art as bike racks, http://www.usatoday.com/news/offbeat/2008-11-02-bike-rack-art_N.htm

I'm really not sure what the big deal is. The city will be getting thousands of bike racks on already existing structures, to 1: help hold up the bikes verically (the pole by itself can lead to the bike falling down), and 2: the city will generate sustainable revenue from the ad space being sold. maybe even in the millions/year. I know everyone is against advertising in the right of way, but these people don't think fiscally. also, adding more bike racks throughout the city, would just add more clutter onto the streets. Putting up extensions on the parking meters is a great option, since it will create multiple locking points for the bike to lock to, (currently, the parking meter only allows for one locking point.) This leads to a much higher class of rack system. Also, the city would get them all for free, in addition to collecting revenue from them.

On those bus shelters with advertising.

A "BUY THIS!!!" message in the exact spot where a bus schedule would be appropriate?

Why ads to pay for basic infrastructure items?

Mick

You're right, bradlyrn1, we aren't thinking fiscally. We are thinking beyond the short term "Hey, look, free bike racks" consideration towards a broader "what sort of city do we want to live in" consideration. What price are we willing to pay for "free" bike racks?

Here's the way I am looking at it. The advertising flags make parking meters only marginally better bike racks than they already are. Yes, they are free but they are also ugly and not very useful. Any money generated by these signs will not go into biking infrastructure but will instead go to parking enforcement in residential areas.

In the long term, this does little or nothing to increase bicycling infrastructure. We don't need parking meters to be better bike racks; we need more bike racks.

Another comment about ad - on buses, so it is a littel off topic.

Due to ads covering bus window with translucent plastic, You can no longer look out a bus windew and see faces on the sidewalk. To me, that seriously decreases the quality of life on the bus. It seems more common than not on buses, now (that may be just the luck of the draw for me, though)

I don't know how much money the ads bring in, but I'm guessing that it really isn't worth it.

Mick

here's why it's important to get actual bike racks installed, and why the parking meter rack may be a waste of time and energy:

Pittsburgh Parking Authority to phase out Park Cards

Tuesday, March 03, 2009

By Rich Lord, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

The Pittsburgh Parking Authority has begun to phase out its 10-year-old Park Card program as it puts in more multi-space meters that take credit cards.

Park Card users are getting "plenty of advance warning," said authority Executive Director David Onorato, and their cards will not expire. But from now on, the authority will only sell $5 denominations -- not the once-popular $20 variety -- and will distribute them only at its Downtown office, on the Boulevard of the Allies. The number of meters that accept the cards will gradually decline.

The Park Cards, introduced in 1999, gave their purchaser a set dollar value of parking power, so they didn't have to carry around quarters. They were popular in neighborhood business districts, especially Squirrel Hill, said Mr. Onorato. At one time around 1,000 meters were equipped to accept the cards.

But the authority has gradually shifted toward the more efficient and secure multi-space meters, which take credit cards but not Park Cards. It has deployed 51 of the multi-space meters citywide, and will roll out more in coming months.

First published on March 3, 2009 at 3:51 pm

Check out this secure parking solution:

http://springwise.com/weekly/2009-03-04.htm#biceberg

here's an article from streetsblog about whether the installation of bike racks is keeping up with the removal of meters for the new system

http://www.streetsblog.org/2009/03/17/locking-up-is-hard-to-do/

I don't think the parking meter thing is going to fly when you consider cities everywhere are pulling out parking meters and replacing them with those solar powered pay-stations that you must walk to and buy a ticket from when you could formerly drop a few quarters into the meter right in front of you.

Good things and bad... I really hate the fact I can't "get lucky" anymore (especially in Oakland), when I go to the library or someplace for 10 minutes and someone left the 10 minutes I need on the meter for me.

Also sucks for the "Meter faries" since you have to put the ticket in the window LOL... I am sure the cities are making much more dough off of these contraptions than the original parking meters.

Those solar panels are attached pretty damn securely too, because I could sure see folks ripping those off... Hell, rip apart a bunch of panels off late one night and power your unibomber cabin out in the woods with that!

It would be nice to replace the meters with bike racks though, spaced throughout neighborhoods where people frequent, like the Southside and Oakland.

With all the extra money they are raking in from the solar powered pay stations, they could probably afford to give us a few bike racks at least right?

Solution!

When they phase out the meters for car parking, they can just use them to enforce paid bicycle locking. Even more revenue!

The more I think about it the more I hate this parking-meter-bike-rack idea.

well, looks like ads on parking meters has been one upped. KFC will be filling potholes in louisville in exchange for the permission to stencil an ad on it.

http://www.infrastructurist.com/2009/03/27/kfc-on-offensive-against-potholes/

Are you sure the Yes Men aren't behind this?