Maple Ridge’s Artistic Bike Rack Unveiled
Bike racks are an important piece of infrastructure necessary to promote the use of bicycles for transportation. The District of Maple Ridge Engineering and the Maple Ridge/Pitt Meadows Bicycle Advisory Committee recognize this and are working to promote the installation of bike racks for the use of cyclists patronizing local businesses.
A new artistic bike rack was unveiled on Saturday during the Haney Farmers’ Market at Memorial Peace Park in Maple Ridge.
The hope is that local business owners will sponsor their own artistic bike racks in designs that would reflect the focus of their business. Anyone interested in doing this should contact Maple Ridge Engineering, Front Counter at Maple Ridge Municipal Hall to start the process.
This particular bike rack was manufactured by Dero Bike Racks using one of their designs.
During Bike-To-Work-Week 2010, Vancity was awarded a Golden Spoke Award from the Maple Ridge/Pitt Meadows Bicycle Advisory Committee for their bike rack (see photo to the left) that incorporates the Vancity “V” logo. This particular bike rack is at their branch at Lougheed and 228 Street. There is another similar bike rack at their Meadowtown Centre branch in Pitt Meadows.
I’d be interested in hearing your comments about bike racks in the Maple Ridge/Pitt Meadows area… are there locations you have noticed that could use a bike rack? Or existing bike racks that are not easily accessible due to placement? Or maybe some really great bike racks that I should be posting photos of?
Great looking little bike rack at the Farmers Market.
Some other places that I frequently bike to where bike racks are still missing/inadequate: front entrance of Haney Place Mall. Hopefully the District will require the mall to provide decent bike parking once the renovations for Target take place. On the Thrifty’s side, with the recent renovations we lost 3/4 of the bike parking that was there. On the other hand, car parking has been increased, some at the expense of extending the sidewalk along Selkirk all the way.
Also the Selkirk Mall (where Scotiabank is located) has no bike rack. The owner of the mall is not interested, and the bank feels it’s the owner’s responsibility.
One way to increase the capacity of a bike rack is to allow cycling on both sides (instead of putting it parallel to a wall, or too close to a tree or lamppost, like some of the bike racks on 227th Street. That way, instead of using 2 bike racks, you only need 1. Those are pretty close together anyway.
Shopper’s Drug Mart on Lougheed is another location where a bike rack would be handy.
These are just some of the locations that I frequently visit by bike. There are many more locations where a bike rack could be more welcoming to cyclists.