Washington
DC Bike Transit Center. Credit: KPG Design Studio.
It's not hard to find innovation in bike parking - lots of funky and
functional designs are constantly being created for parking fixtures -
the staples, rungs, and poles that help cyclists secure their bikes to
something in hopes of avoiding
theft. But what about cyclists that want more, more security, and
more services, and are willing to pay? Innovative examples are fewer and
further between, partly due to cost. We've found seven of the systems
that deter theft and give cyclists peice of mind. And because you can
park 6-10 bikes in one average car space, this parking helps local
municipalities minimize cars and maximize bikes in city cores.
1)
Edogawa Ward Kasai Bicycle Parking.
This somewhat overwrought
YouTube video does give a great underground view of the Kasai Bicycle
Parking structure. While it looks rather unassuming above ground, below
the surface is a fantastic round tower with an intricate rotating spoked
storage and retrieval system where bikes rest until their owners comes
for pick ups. With that purely Japanese love for high-tech detailed
practicality, the Kasai system allows a user to drop their bike and
retrieve it in less than a minute.
Designed by the JFE
Engineering Corporation, this version of a bike tree was created in
order for JFE to diversify away from simply making steel (competition
from China and Korea) to making valuable steel products. The Tokyo Kasai
parking costs around $20 per month. Kasai can take 6,480 cycles on the
tree when fully loaded. Impressive! Six other JFE projects are up and
running, with various bike capacities, around Japan.
Credit: KPG
Design Studio.
2) Washington D.C. Bicycle Transit Center.
The
best thing about this bicycle parking center is that is in the United
States, and the nation's capital. Really! The bicycle lane on
Pennsylvania Avenue and this secure 150-space bicycle parking structure
are symbolically important in the U.S, where less than 2% of the
populace are bicycle commuters. And hey, gotta keep up with rapidly
up-cycling New Yorkers (236,000 daily bike commuters, and counting).
Conceived by KPG Design
Studio, the DC Bike Transit Center is described by its creators as
"something between a canopy and a building." A partially open structure
takes advantage of passive airflow to help lessen the need to heat and
cool inside the parking area. The parking is controlled by the
non-profit organization Bike
Station, and the facility includes a changing room, lockers, bike
rental, bike repair and retail sales. Monthly parking is $12 plus a $20
membership fee annually. Bike Station has a handful of other facilities,
mostly in California, including the Covina
Bike Station.
Credit: UiD.
3) Malmö Bicycle
Tower.
This 522-space bicycle tower is currently more vision than
reality. Commissioned by the city of Malmö in 2008, it was designed by
urban planning and consulting firm
UiD,
but never built. UiD started with the idea that cyclists should be in
close proximity to train and subway, but should not have to bring their
bikes up and down ramps to get secure parking. The proposed bike tower
would accommodate 522 bikes in three separate columns of bike slots.
One extra and enticing feature of the proposed tower was that it
would let users communicate with the system via GPS in order to schedule
a bike pick up, so that arriving cyclists would have bicycles
immediately available. Sounds heavenly, let's hope UiD can recycle the
idea to some other municipality.
Credit Ascobike.
4)
Ascobike Biggest in North America.
What's impressive about the
Ascobike 24-hour secure bicycle parking station in a suburb of São
Paolo is both its low price for users (around $5 per month) and its
complete lack of high tech frills. The parking is simply long white
racks with hooks. This isn't so practical for the less able-bodied
individual, but it does have the advantages of lower power usage and the
ability to provide jobs that mechanized systems don't necesarily have.
And capacity! $1,700 bicycles can park here daily.
Credit: A.
Streeter.
5) Amsterdam No Frills MacBike Facilities.
There's never
enough bike-parking in Amsterdam - even the unmonitored Central Station
(pictured above), with its 7,000 spaces, is constantly full. So, for
those cyclists willing to pay a bit extra for secure parking, MacBike
has that pricesless advantage of locations - two main storage facilities
at two of the main train stations.
MacBike
parking is no frills, and the user not only has to take the bike up and
down stairstep ramps each time, but also find and retrieve his or her
own bike. However, in a city where bike theft is still relatively high
and bikes are frequently impounded, paying for parking might be
necessary peace of mind. MacBike is planning a fancier facility with
showers and a tune-up facility somewhere in the inner city, but hasn't
yet started construction. MacBike also has bicycle rentals and hosts
locations for the city's OP-Fiets bike share. Prices for parking is
around $125 per year.
MacBike
entrance. Credit: A. Streeter.
What used to
be a parking lot is now a multi-modal transportation center with secure
bike parking and showers in the basement. Credit: Nick Bastian
via flickr.
6)Tempe's Bicycle Cellar.
This secure bike
locking facility is a membership service located inside the Tempe
Transportation Building, a green building that has a rooftop garden and
uses around 50% less energy that similarly sized locations. The
Bike Cellar's "commuter
center" provides secure locking and access to showers for around 120
annually - your own locker will run around 36 more each year. Tempe has
just around 160,000 residents, so it's amazing and laudable that a
fairly small city is so fair ahead of most other U.S. burgs in supplying
this kind of amenity to cyclists. As Tempe is also a hot and dry
southwestern climate, the showers are well appreciated. Around 300
available spots through membership.
Credit:
Biceberg.
7)Biceberg Is a Bike Igloo.
Last but not least
is this very cool bicycle storage system showing up now in eight
different Spanish cities. Biceberg has been around for awhile - the idea
was patented back in 1994. What's excellent about the Biceberg, apart
from the fact that it is secure parking, is that for cities, it can be
implemented at various sizes, and with a fairly small amount of
underground and above ground space. Storage for 23 bikes requires an
hole of just 1.5 meters, while 92 bicycles takes a much deeper space of
5.25 meters.
Biceberg is also now promoting its B-igloo,
which includes a big, white "igloo" above ground but also has the
advantage of having optional photovoltaic collectors to help power the
system. In addition, in the B-igloo, each user maintains an individual
locker space, so storing helmets and other cargo is no problem. And,
according to the company, users can retrieve bikes from the B-igloo in
just 10 seconds.
