Boulderspace

After a recent post on Boulderspace regarding this idea, I began speaking with various City of Boulder staff members about the possibility of sponsoring a bike rack design competition. Pending City of Boulder approval, Boulderspace is excited to announce a citywide competition to design a unique bicycle rack for installation atop the recently-beheaded parking meter poles.

This has come about in response to the City’s replacement of the old parking meter heads with new, solar-powered “Pay & Display” stations. While touted as being efficient and offering easy payment options, this widespread replacement has generated a decent amount of concern among Boulder’s large bicycling community, as the original meter poles were ideal locations to park and lock one’s bike. It felt to some like an ironic spin on the classic game, rock, paper scissors: car beats bike…

Of course, we’re not the first community to deal with this: Seattle, Washington, Berkeley, California, and Arlington, Virginia are three other communities that have grappled with the parking meter (car) vs. bike rack (bicycle) issue. Each of these communities has had a slightly different take on the matter, but have worked out the various issues and have had the similar result of supporting the retrofitting of parking meter poles for bicycle parking.

Indeed, after some quick research, I learned from one City of Boulder official that the City has a plan in the works, having purchased 125 bike racks to affix to old meter poles in the immediate downtown area. (I, for one, applaud the City in its foresight on this issue, and hope that even more can be done to facilitate bicyclists parking needs in town.) Additionally, this official identified other areas in town that are considered “high need” areas, areas in which bicyclists congregate at various times and need space to lock their bikes. It is in these high need areas that we’re proposing to install additional racks with a custom design based on the winning entry from this competition.

Details of the competition are being drawn-up, but the idea is that the rack should be designed to fit safely and securely over the old meter poles. We’re still soliciting sponsorship from businesses and organizations in Boulder, in the hopes that we can establish an unbiased jury to judge the submissions. We’re also hopeful that our co-sponsors can offer a series of prizes to award the top submissions. Ultimately, the grand prize would be to have the winning submission produced and installed.

For the time being, if you’re interested in submitting a design entry, or if you’re interested in co-sponsoring some element of this competition, please email us, and enter “bike rack design” as the subject line. We’ll post updates regarding the competition as we receive more information from the city and as we develop the final guidelines. Happy pedaling …