Advocacy & Safety - Bike Shelter Suggestions?

Hi there,

I am providing a design proposal for a bike shelter at my school, and am looking for suggestions from those more knowledgable than I! Let me give a little background:

1. Weather - We have a very long winter, and gets down to -40 (-40 is the same in celsius and fahrenheit...).

2. Hoping to hold around 50 bikes or so, it would have a slanted ceiling and be semi-enclosed. I don't think it'll be walls, although they're looking for suggestions so perhaps I could suggest actual walls. They is the concern that during the winter people would have to go in there and be able to shovel it decently... that or have enough sheltering that there isn't much snow inside.

Specific info I would be wondering about:

1. Any positive/negative comments you have on bike shelters you've seen? Or feature you'd like to see? Any comments on layout, materials, square footage, would be much appreciated!

2. Know of any comparisons done between different bike racks? Hmm it seems to tough to balace (locking ease/ locking options / security / capacity / space efficiency...)

I'll be straight with y'all, this is a contest. However I think it'd be a step in the right direction for biking in Canada, and would love to try to help that as much as I can. So although I cannot promise any percentage of the prize (should I win), I hope that you will recognize you're contributing to something more important than the prize. This would be the first bike shelter at my school, and I'm tired of seeing bikes getting vandalized, stolen, etc, so this is pretty important to me. Thanks for your time!

cheers,
-xan-

Edit #1 - Also I should mention that I dont' think there will be rental fees... I'm not sure. But it doesnt' sound like it. So it would be open to use by everyone, so probably won't be seperate stalls or anything

Where I live, the mass transit agency puts bike lockers at train stations. These are rectangular boxes divided diagonally with a locking door at either end and are just large enough to accomodate a single bike in each half. They are rented out for 3 or 6 months at a time and they provide a key to the lock. They appear to be fiberglass or similar, with some sort of internal metal frame. The nice thing about this concept is that it's modular so it would be easy to expand if demand for them increases. They are bolted to the pavement from inside so there is no required construction and cost little to install.

The bike shelter at my high school in england was against the wall of a building. The rack was arranged to take bikes alternately horizontal with front wheel towards the wall, then almost vertically. That way the bikes could be parked fairly close to each other without getting their handle bars tangled. There was no snow to worry about. It had a roof of corrugated steel sheeting on an angle iron frame. This shelter only protected the bike from the rain. It offered no protection against theft or vandalism. When I was at school some kids used to swap all the combination locks around. I think siting to give visibility to security guards or owners would be the best protection against theft.

Inverted U racks are the most popular style, provided they are positioned correctly with sufficient space between the racks for 2 bikes and a person, and enough space between the end and the wall to fit a front wheel. Most of the racks I see are located badly.
For a shelter, you need enough headroom to stand. In heavy snow you need a steeper angled roof to support the weight. An electronic card-operated door would keep out non cyclists. CCTV or webcam would discourage vandals.
I usually start to sweat the moment I stop riding. You need some shelter from the cold, but in summer you dont want an indoor environment.

-- Give consideration to the materials the shelter is made of. It has to not get brittle in the freezing weather. And the parts of the shelter which will come into contact with the user's hands should not be metal.

since theres snow, you'll want it high off the ground, so that'll avoid some ground moisture. you'll want a huge giant steep roof that can hold the snow. i would just suggest kinda of making a really big garage. something really heavy duty, with nice thick roof and nice big pillars to hold the roof up. you want it to be able to with stand the snow. then just get those racks you see at the city or at a park or something. just make sure those can withstand the cold also. then just stick those in there and leave about 6ft or 7 ft of walking space around the bunch of racks in the middle. that way, if the snow over flows the elevated platform of the shelter, it wont hit the bikes that fast and theirs plenty of room to ride out and around and such.

OK this looks like a good little project!
I work in an engineering department in Saskatoon SK with about 50 others. We design mining/milling facilities (including buildings of all sorts) for Saskatchewan's north (even colder than Winnepeg)... I think I should be able to pull together some Ideas & submit a couple of decent options. The first step is to come up with a complete set of design criteria. So far we know:
- Winnepeg weather/snow loads etc
- to house aprroximately 50 bikes

Some things we need to know:
- What is the deadline for the submission of your proposal?
- What is the budgeted amount for the facility?
- Is this for an elementary or high school (or combined)? Makes a bit of a difference with bike sizes, also high school students could use vertical racks but elementry kids would likely have trouble with them.
- Attached to the school or stand-alone?
- On existing pavement, concrete or dirt?
- What are the reasons for wanting this facility (shelter from rain/snow, protection from vanalizm etc.)

I'll be happy to help out in any way I can. I don't want to see other schools end up with the "solution" my kids' elemetry school came up with... They try to discourage kids from riding their bikes to school as much as possible:eek: They built a small metal building with no racks inside (they just pile the bikes on top of each other:eek: ). At the end of the day they open it up & it's a free-for-all for the kids to find their bikes & untangle them :(

a small metal building would be good if it had racks in it. that was kinda the idea i was going for... it should be like a parking structure, but instead of cars, they're bikes..

Thanks for all the ideas everyone, definitely keeping them in mind!

clevernamehere, you got a PM ;)

-xan-