bike parking

A strange story out of Waterloo has Susan Fish getting her bike slapped with an extra lock by building management for locking her bike outside coffee shop while she goes in to get a coffee. The full story can be found at the Waterloo Chronicle website and also at Take The Lane.

I've seen the odd warning about bikes not being welcome to lock to a pedestrain railing here in Toronto, and this makes sense as the railing are for the comfort and safety of the pedestrians who need it. But I've not ever heard of something this extreme in Toronto.

Does this kind of thing still happen in Toronto? Where, and by whom?

One of the spokes of Toronto's Bike Plan is bike parking and the city has published guidelines that should eventually become a city wide by-law for developers for new buildings, and for building owners who are renovating buildings in the city. I think mandating bicycle parking is a good idea, and these are good guidelines to be starting with.

So having put together that image from the Google Maps satellite view of my wife's street, I decided to scrap the hand-drawn form, and paste in (roughly) that same picture before submitting the form.

Post and Ring request form: filled, redacted

So this is roughly the form that will be getting submitted. (Except that the copy going in has her name, address, and other such information on it).

GO Transit Bike shelter
Photo was taken on Christmas Day at Guildwood GO station. Looks like the staff at GO Transit decided to give cyclists a much appreciated present.

This past weekend the Yonge Lawrence Village BIA unveiled a set of bike art racks along the Yonge Street sidewalks.

Community residents, especially bike enthusiasts, will be delighted with the latest project of the Yonge Lawrence Village Business Improvement Association (BIA).

In early May 2008, 16 innovative bike stands will be installed on Yonge Street from Lawrence Ave to Yonge Blvd. The first eight “art” racks are now in production and have been designed by an entrepreneurial group from Bike Stand Art, led by Phil Sarazen and Jack Gibney.

My favourite one so far is this flower rack which sits almost in front of a flower shop. (Unfortunately I arrived after it closed last night.) Many of the racks have small pieces of stone embedded in the rack to give an accent.