San Diego's Second Bike Corral
San Diego now has a second bike corral - a dedicated spot to park bicycles, this time in North Park by the Lafayette Hotel.
The good news is that San Diego has another bike corral so people now can look forward to parking their bikes to a bike rack instead of locking them to poles or trees. The bad news is that this new corral is located almost mid-block on Louisiana Street between El Cajon Boulevard and Howard Avenue. I had a hard time finding it since the angled parking blocks the view until one is right in front of the bike corral. It seems that the placement of the corral revealed a sort of embarrassment from City officials who want to hide bicycles rather than revel in the fact that the city is quietly plodding its way to becoming more bike friendly.
The placement of the corral is also worrisome to me because because it is not visible from the Lafayette Hotel that is located on El Cajon Boulevard and I fear that it won't get any use and thus will wind up being a waste of good money.
The nation's most bike friendly city, Portland, lists the locations of all their bike corrals on their transportation page including where they prefer bike corrals to be placed,
The City of Portland prefers locating on-street bike parking corrals at street corners in order to add additional benefits, such as creating defacto curb extensions to shorten pedestrian’s crossing of the street and improving visibility for cars turning into traffic from side streets.
Corrals should be located on the main street as close as possible to the main entrances. The City requires that the immediately adjacent business owner and property owner approve of the corral installation and sign an agreement requiring minor, regular sweeping of the corral to discourage the accumulation of debris.
This bike corral located on Louisiana is not located close to the main entrance of the one big business on El Cajon Boulevard: The Lafayette Hotel. It should have been placed on the intersection of Louisiana and El Cajon Boulevard to both increase visibility of drivers turning onto El Cajon Boulevard and for pedestrians crossing Louisiana Street.
What are your thoughts on this new bike corral?
Bike Corral Ribbon Cutting – Hillcrest (Corner of Fifth Avenue and University Avenue)
From Councilmember Todd Gloria's office,
Councilmember Gloria will be hosting a press conference to highlight the first bike corral installed in the City of San Diego. I hope you will join us!
Bike Corral Ribbon Cutting – Hillcrest (Corner of Fifth Avenue and University Avenue)
Monday, May 14, 2012
12:00 – 12:30pmContact: Anthony Bernal | Council Representative | Office of Councilmember Todd Gloria
202 C Street, M.S. 10A | San Diego, California 92101 | Office: (619)236.6633
UPDATE: Here is the official press release from Councilmember Gloria's office.
In celebration of the bike corral’s completion, Snooze Eatery will donate 100% of the proceeds from Monday’s sales of its bike-themed Pancake of the Day to the San Diego County Bicycle Coalition.
San Diego's First Bike Corral at Fifth and University
After what has seemed like an eternity, San Diego is finally (finally!) getting bike corrals. But what is a bike corral?
A Bike Corral is an on-street bicycle parking facility that can accommodate many more bicycles than a typical sidewalk rack. Bike corrals typically take up an existing single-vehicle parking space and replace it with up to eight bicycle racks – enough space for 16 bicycles! These facilities make more efficient use of a vehicle parking lane in areas with high cycling demands. They are especially useful in areas with narrow sidewalks where it would be impractical to install a sidewalk rack.
District Three is slated to get the initial set of bike corrals thanks to the efforts of Councilman Todd Gloria and his staff, and of course Tom Landre. There will be three locations in District Three (North Park and El Cajon being the other two) that will have bike corrals by the end of this month. What better way to celebrate Bike Month than finally having something tangible and useful for bicycle riders?
Looking back over our email and in-person conversations, Landre kept reiterating how getting a bike corral was a high priority for him. He began meeting with City staff, neighborhood groups, and advocates in January this year to get this done. In one email, Landre stated,
I know I keep saying this and it might be hard to believe but I am working on it daily.
I trusted Landre but was still unclear, like many others in the city, on what exactly the holdup was. Los Angeles currently has multiple bike corrals and San Diego had, until today, none.
But now that we have an actual bike corral in San Diego, we should all be truly grateful to Tom Landre, the City's Bike Coordinator, and Councilman Todd Gloria for working to get this done. Please be sure to send your thank you letters, phone calls and other love notes to:
Tom Landre - TLandre (at) sandiego.gov, phone: (619) 533-3045
Councilman Todd Gloria - toddgloria (at) sandiego.gov, phone: (619) 236-6633
Update: It is also Councilman Gloria's birthday today. He seemed pretty pleased with this news,
[blackbirdpie url="https://twitter.com/#!/ToddGloria/status/200699189619994625"]
Edit: An earlier version of this post inadvertently stated that three of the bike corral locations would be in Hillcrest. Tom Landre sent in an email stating that the next two corrals are slated to be in North Park.
Are Bike Corrals Coming to San Diego?
On the City's Engineering and Capital Projects site, it appears that bike corrals may soon make an appearance in the neighborhood of Hillcrest:
By installing more bicycle parking amenities for the city's growing cycling population, the City is (if at somewhat of a snail's pace), making progress in meeting its objectives described in the Bicycle Master Plan to promote bicycle transportation which was adopted by the City Council last year.
For a better understanding on what a bike corral actually is, the following video from Streetsfilms is very informative:
New parking infrastructure for bicyclists
Last week I had written about how pitiful San Diego's bicycle population was at 0.9%.
Local business owner Jay Porter left a comment with suggestions he thought would increase the San Diego bicycle population to 20% in one year with no cost to the city, if they implemented the following policies:
1) Assess a “road services impact fee” of $5000 for each new automotive parking space built, public or private
2) Give a $500 credit against development fees (fund permitting) for each parking space removed from privately owned property
3) Assess a $250/year road services impact fee against all exisiting publicly accessible spaces
4) Assess a $50/year road services impact fee on all privately used spaces (garages, driveways, etc.)
5) Convert all free public spaces on City roadways to either 15 minute parking, enforceable 24/7, or paid/metered parking, enforceable 24/7, or turn them into bike and/or ped lanes with red zones.
6) All excess money from the assessments, apply to developing separated bikeways on major arterials (Genessee, Mission Gorge, etc).Within one year, I’d expect bicycling would become 20% or more of transportation. Plus the local economy would boom as money was shifted from car expenses (which leave the city) to discretionary spending and bike expenses (which often stay in the city)
As if on cue, three bits of information have crossed my desk that will put some of these suggestions into effect.
1. Jessica Freeman, Program Specialist for the Uptown Partnership contacted us to ask our readers to opine about bicycle parking infrastructure. Specifically, they have allocated $20K in the 2009-2010 budget toward bike racks. The Uptown Partnership would also like our readers to email info@uptownpartnership.org with specific project ideas to improve bike access and parking. The caveat is that the projects have to be located within Uptown Partnership's District boundaries which are the neighborhoods of "Bankers Hill-Park West, Hillcrest, and Mission Hills."
Additionally, John Hargreaves, Project Manager at Uptown Partnership, is open to hearing your thoughts on bike racks that will be funded from the 2009-2010 budget. Contact: jhargreaves@uptownpartnership.org
2. On Wednesday (February 17) at 5:15 PM, bicyclists in San Diego are invited to attend the offices of the Centre City Development Corporation to speak up for bike specific infrastructure that is already on the agenda. The CCDC's offices are located at 401 B St, Suite 400 in downtown San Diego. If you are unable to attend, please email Kathy Keehan (Executive Director at the Bicycle Coalition) at execdir@sdcbc.org a list of places where bike corrals would be most appreciated.
3. Omar Passons, President of the North Park Community Association, contacted us to let us know that the Association has allocated some money for bike racks within the boundaries of North Park. We will post more details as we learn them.