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whalesalad

> A light, quick, cheap solution so good, it should be copied the world over.

It is. This can be seen all over... SF, LA, DC, Austin, Ann Arbor ... I have seen this everywhere (in the US)

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Temporary/incremental bike racks are common? I've never seen this before in any US city. Pretty cool idea.

And makes a lot of sense when demand is seasonal (e.g.: summer surges of bicyclists)

In the winter it would be hard to plow around them.

Parking-space racks come out in the summer in the more bike-friendly cities near Boston, for several years now. So, yeah, it's definitely a thing here.

Really? I don't believe I've ever seen one in Boston/Cambridge/Somerville. What are the nearby bike friendly cities?

Srsly? Cambridge and Somerville usually have a few deployed around. I have actually used them. Union sq usually has one or two, but maybe not right now with all the construction.

The innovation is that these are temporary, and are an experiment. If the temporary one attracts significant usage, it's replaced with a permanent one. If not, it reverts to car usage.

I love these sorts of tests. The cost to try this for a week/month/whatever is super low, and if it fails you move on.

Ideally these sorts of things are run by a non-political portion of a city government, nothing riles business associations more than the risk of losing parking.

Yup.

These are basically reusable PoCs.

You move it somewhere. See if there is demand. And if there is, you look at more permanent solutions.

Sincerely asking, but what is the innovation? These have existed for a very long time: https://www.theparkcatalog.com/9-bike-single-sided-grid-bike...

Hopefully not so light that a thief can load up the whole thing and steal all the bikes.

Ten years or so ago I recall a story about some guys in Eugene unbolting an entire rack full of bikes from the asphalt and loading it into a truck. Can't find the story now.

The bigger, the easier to get away with it from a social perspective--they could look more like people on official construction business.

You can steal anything as long as you steal it with a service truck or a rollback and wear a reflective vest while you do it.

Solution: a device that takes a closeup hi-res photo of the remover.

If I recall correctly, they were dressed like ODOT workers to appear official.

This was also a persistent urban legend in Cambridge, England in the early 90s. I'm not sure how much I believe it, bikes were/are easy enough to steal as it is

It happened to me once that I chained my bike to a stairway railing, certainly not moveable. When I returned, my bike was gone... actually the railing was gone. It was about to be replaced, so the construction workers had cut away the railing. They had placed my bike carefully a few meters away, though it wasn't tied to anything any more, as the railing was removed :).

Yeah, we have a few of these in downtown Boulder, too. Most are permanent, but I think they put up temporaries during popular summer events.

Where in Ann Arbor? I live in it and have never seen a structure like this.

They have similar things downtown, I believe there's one across the street from the Fleetwood Diner.

this years map of them from the DDA

https://www.a2dda.org/wp-content/uploads/ddabikeparkingFB_04...

In front of the gay bar in Kerrytown. It's not a platform, but it's the same concept. There is a steel barrier/structure placed there to block cars from parking and the structure also serves as a bike rack.

map of the rest of them - they move year to year

https://www.a2dda.org/wp-content/uploads/ddabikeparkingFB_04...

I'm looking at one right now on Main St. between Huron and Washington. It even has a library Summer Game code on it.

Oh yeah I think there is usually one out in front of Mighty Good too?

I honestly didn't even realize those were temporary, I've just always seen them.

here's a map of them

https://www.a2dda.org/wp-content/uploads/ddabikeparkingFB_04...

Where in DC? I've never seen it.

Can't remember where, but I've seen it. Chances are it was somewhere near Adams Morgan or Georgetown.

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