(Photo: J. Maus/BikePortland)
Our bike parking coverage is sponsored by Huntco.
Downtown Portland’s most interesting new meal spot could be described as an indoor food cart pod, or maybe a slightly upmarket food court.
But whatever you want to call Pine Street Market, one thing it’s clearly short of is bike parking.
A few weeks ago, when I met a friend there, I resorted to something I’ve never had to do since moving to Portland: locking my bike to the plumbing outside a nearby building.
This is such an odd situation in Portland, which usually excels at commercial bike parking above all else, that it’s been drawing attention:
Is there any plan to install bike parking at Pine St Market? These poor parking signs! @pinestreetpdx @PBOTinfo pic.twitter.com/V4JXhdbuFT
— Andrew Plambeck (@aplambeck) May 12, 2016
@BikePortland thanks for the update. When I took that photo there were bikes locked to saplings, and even to the saplings support stakes!
— Andrew Plambeck (@aplambeck) May 20, 2016
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So we asked the city’s bike parking team what was up. City spokesman John Brady replied on Thursday, saying that instead of adding their own on-site bike parking, Pine Street Market opted for the alternative in city code: paying into the city bike parking fund.
“Usually this would mean the installation of racks on the sidewalk,” Brady wrote in an email. “That didn’t happen in this case because we knew there would be a number of restaurants with café seating. So we are currently working with the building management to install a bike corral. There is also a BIKETOWN station slated for the area. Planning and phasing that mix of on-street bike storage is taking some time.”
So if you’ve got a yen for Israeli street food, bahn mi, fancy soft-serve ice cream, Mexican tapas, or Chicago-style hot dogs, grin and bear with the temporary parking problems. After all, this is what car drivers are choosing to deal with most of the time.
— Michael Andersen, (503) 333-7824 – michael@bikeportland.org
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