Hey all,
I met with the board of Main Street Morgantown this morning to discuss our plans for bike racks on High street. They are still concerned about the urban clutter that the racks will add to the downtown. Furthermore, they would like to remove the curbing around the trees, which will make the rack placement in those spots a new obstruction. Their questions were:
1) did we have other options?
2) could we put all bikes in the parking garages?
3) could we use a mixture of parking?
4) could we put the bikes on side streets?
5) would there be a time limit on parking?
6) who would police the racks?
7) how would abandoned bikes be dealt with?
8) why weren't all of the property owners and merchants contacted about the rack placement?
I told them that we could do bike corrals at the expense of losing a parking space. Not only would they not be as convenient, but they are less attractive.
I discussed the options of some secure parking in the parking garages, but the loss of on street parking would lower the the use of downtown by cyclists.
I proposed a mix of one side of High street with post and rings and a bicycle corral possibly near the Blue Moose as a pilot project.
I told them that side streets had been considered but the existence already of the bump outs and trees gave us an out of the way placement of racks.
Dan Borhoff commented on questions 5,6 and 7 by saying that a city ordinance would have to be passed by city council.
My response to question 8 was that we were working with organizations like main street and the design committee who represent these individuals and that it was not practical for us to contact every merchant and property owner.
The Main Street board wants to discuss it further and have us meet with the design committee again (they meet the second Thursday of the month).
We will need to develop a more definitive plan for bike corral style parking. There will be several problems to consider:
1) working with the parking authority to obtain spaces.
2) working with the state DOH as most street downtown are also state roads.
3) dealing with more underground utility issues in the street with regard to mounting bollards and racks.
Lots more stuff to work on before the next design committee meeting August 13.
Chip
