Centretown cyclists may soon get more bike parking now that Catherine McKenney has won the battle to replace Diane Holmes as Somerset Ward councillor.
McKenney campaigned on a platform that included promised improvements to cycling infrastructure, including increased bike parking in Centretown.
“If you don’t have a place to lock your bike to you’re less likely to take it again,” says McKenney.
McKenney’s push to increase bike parking spots comes at a time when the city is looking to double the number of daily bicycle trips taken by commuters, which is already at 43,000 daily.
Don Grant, the executive director of Ottawa Centre Eco District, recently led a team that studied Centretown’s bike parking situation and found that people are often forced to lock up using trees or poles, which increases the chance of bikes being stolen.
Cyclist and writer, Laurie Kingston found that when she biked downtown for an appointment, she was unable to find a spot to park her bike and took her complaints to twitter.
“It’s not impossible to steal a bike if it’s not actually locked up to a proper bike rack but in the end that’s what I had to do,” she says. “I knew I was already going to be about 10 minutes late because I couldn’t find another place to lock up my bike properly.”
Centretown has about 2,000 official bike parking spots, which aren’t always full. There are several kinds of bike racks in Centretown. A circle-post that replaced old parking metres, small blue racks with advertising on them, old style racks that are low to the ground and a type of rack that Grant says is the ideal.
“The best unit is a style that will have five or six big rings… each of the slots will fit one [bike] comfortably and then you can fit a bike on either end.”
Grant’s team found that while in theory there are enough bike parking spots, they aren’t all in the high traffic areas or of the best quality. “There are a couple spots where there aren’t any bikes but there will be other spots where you will go and you have to sort of jam your bike in or you have to go to the next bike parking area,” says Grant.
Kingston says the problem goes right to the heart of creating the kind of Centretown that residents want.
“We want to have a vibrant Centretown – a vibrant core of the city and it’s much more attractive to people to come, do their business, see professionals, go shopping if there is a place to lock your bike.”
The problem is growing McKenney says, “Obviously more people are cycling but when [people] cycle [they] don’t expect to have to take time to find parking and that does often happen during the day. I would like to see more bike parking available in the downtown core.”
But there may be other alternatives to improving bike parking outside of asking the city for help, says Grant. “The kneejerk response is the city needs to do this, I think we need to look at ways in which the merchants and businesses can all work together to get better bike parking.”
Grant also says that if Centretown residents have other issues on their minds and don’t want large tax increases, bike parking may take a back seat. Better bike parking options exist, if residents are ready to hand over some cash. “In some cities, they actually have off-street parking and you can pay a small amount every month. But you go in the area’s secure and you can hang your bike up.”
McKenney doesn’t intend to waste any time fixing the problem though and, “we will be getting to work right away after being sworn in, so I hope to have additional bike parking in place by next summer for sure.”