Boulderspace

There’s a sight in town that many residents may view with a certain degree of pleasure, the newly-headless parking meter poles. The City of Boulder recently installed new, solar-powered “Pay & Display Stations” around the downtown and University Hill areas, relieving the necessity for one meter per parking space. The University of Colorado is in on the act as well, making the new parking stations a ubiquitous presence on Boulder streets. These stations, installed at a rate of 2 stations per block (one on each side of the street), take the place of individual parking meters. I’ve seen these in other cities, including Denver, Aspen and, at the time of this post, in Seattle.

While I agree that there’s a certain efficiency to these meters, and I really enjoy the solar aspect—especially as it relates to a broader solar-powered message (the more solar power the average person sees, the more it has a chance of becoming a cultural expectation), I’d like to focus on the “residue” of the old meter system, namely, the now-headless parking meter poles.

I haven’t heard any plans for these poles, and assume that there are quite a few of them still rooted in place in cement. So, before the City tears them all down and then has to patch the cement as a result, I have an idea I’d like to put forward: lets sponsor a contest to design one or a series of bike racks to be mounted atop or beside these poles. The idea would be to utilize the existing pole, adding to it in such a way as to create a stable, and, hopefully, cool place to lock up one’s bike. These new bikeracks would hopefully be more integrated than the steering-wheel idea implemented by the city a few years ago, something similar to this

to make it obvious that bikes are welcome and encouraged to lock up here. As a bike rider, I’ve found there to be far-too few places to lock my bike when I ride around town. And, while it’s great that there are these new, efficient pay stations, the fact is that I and many people in town would prefer for there to be fewer cars on the road. Boulder has a large biking community, and creating more bike racks out of the existing meter poles seems like it’d be a great way to satisfy two needs. Adding the element of a design competition would be exciting and fun…

Seattle, it turns out, has addressed this issue as well. Check out the link here (it’s an FAQ section on the Seattle’s municipal government website) and navigate to the question “How is bicycle parking affected when parking meters are removed to install pay stations?”