scarry

Check it out, this place is awesome.

https://www.aia.org/aiarchitect/thisw...325pw_bike.htm

powers2b

Great idea assuming there is an army of janatorial personel working around the clock to de-funkify the place.

Enjoy

Guest

It's not that new... it's been about a year now. It usually gets a lot more foot traffic in the summer. I've been riding past it frequently all winter, and it's pretty deserted.

It's a good idea for folks who are coming from a long way and have no place to shower and/or change. I've heard a few complaints here and there about some slight damage to bikes stored there- apparently, the bikes on the higher racks are a little difficult to put up and/or take down, and the facility takes no responsibility for damage done to bikes while in their possession. That's enough to make me never want to use it. You mess my bike up= you pay for getting it fixed. Period.

Koffee

bennyk

I am working in chicago this week, and i'm completely jealous....

Especially all you guys who zip past me on the lakefront path every morning as I walk to work

bk

markhr

wow, very, very cool - now if only we could convince the penny pinchers in London to open this sort of thing here.

Guest

If they make it self sustaining, like solar energy, people pay per useage, etc., then it should be minimal cost. In fact, if they install a conference room or something, they'll probably recoup their costs in a few years.

Koffee

jeff-o

Nah, all it needs is a Starbucks and they'll break even in a few months.

I think this is a great idea, but if the complaints about bike damage are correct, then they may have to modify the storage system. I wonder if the place has security cameras?

Guest

What seemed to be happening is that the folks who rack the bikes sometimes would accidentally knock the bike against another bike or be a bit aggressive with the bike. I was watching a couple of news reports about the station when they first opened, and although the station got positive reviews, they did find a few people that had damage done to their bikes, and that's when they were told that the station takes no responsibility for damage done to the bikes. That's just bogus. Since I love my bikes, I just could not reconcile myself with the damage done should one of them slam my bike into another bike in the process of racking it, or scratching it. I would hurt somebody.

What you guys should do is look into some city grants or pitch a proposal to your city legislature (I know nothing about London politics) and see if you can get some kind of big grant. It would take you probably finding an architech and construction folks, and definitely a real estate agent, and crunching some numbers, and you'll have to do some research about the cost of building such a structure, and then pitch it, but maybe you could get something started. You could definitely pitch that with the car charge to ride in London, they could advocate bike riding instead and give people a facility where they could change and shower and store their bikes, making it easier for them to leave the cars at home.

Koffee

77Univega

- - What a great article. Two phrases caught my attention:
1. "Funded by the Congestion Mitigation and Air Quality program..."
(I wonder how bad the congestion had to get before they finally funded it.)

2. "Steele notes that the popularity of the station has been somewhat surprising..."

'Nuf said

Dahon.Steve

That's what I was afraid of. In other words, it's a good place to park your rusting department store bike because you would be crazy to leave a Trek 1000 on those racks. I'm sure the crooks have already scoped this joint and visit it frequently! Unless they have armed security, you could never leave any bicycle of value making it pretty useless. I still believe the best way to lock up a bike is to find a location away from foot traffic and hide it.

Guest

I don't think the bikes are exactly that accessible to crooks, but if something were to happen, I do think they would say there were NOT responsible.

I wouldn't leave a bike I really really cared about there, but I'd leave my beater bike there.

Koffee