Bike parking on the new Mall: The good, the bad, and the confusing

rack-shaped objects on the new transit
mall.
(Photos: Victoria Gilbert)
Here’s a bit of good, bad, and confusing news about bike parking on TriMet’s transit mall in downtown Portland (we’ll get to the issue of actually riding on it in a separate story).
Back in January, we reported on how stringent design guidelines that call for expensive bike racks have resulted in a major lack of bike parking.
TriMet architects, in their quest to create an aesthetically pleasing streetscape on 5th and 6th avenues, require the City to pay for silver, brushed steel racks that are much more expensive than their standard issue blue ones ($367 compared to $87). In addition, crews actually removed existing staple racks that didn’t conform to the design guidelines (including racks directly in front of the Bicycle Transportation Alliance office). [Read more…]