The City of Seattle has begun installing on street bicycle parking in every neighborhood around town and the Hill formerly known as Broadway is one of the first to see the new change. Ours is parked in front of the Broadway Market and it replaces the space for one, new fangled, gas guzzling automobile, and the consumer who drove it there.
Each behemoth rack is made of tube steel and is welded to resemble an automobile, with two headlights up front, along with a grill. The look resembles a face, not smiling because you are part of the solution to the crisis, one that actually looms perilous and could kill us all, but with teeth bared, as though daring you to lock your bike to one of its eight loops.
Patronizing is a word that comes to mind, because the design seems deliberately contrived to appeal to the funky, quirky style that Seattle residents supposedly embody. On a side note, those specific terms are probably the most cliché, hackneyed, and tired adjectives used to describe the people who live here. Time and again the terms are bandied about on the newscasts by talking heads describing us. More times than are worth counting, the misperception has been reprinted in the local papers, (RIP PI), and from this day on let it be known that it is just not true.
Aloof, I am okay with, but don’t make me out to sound like some kind of jerk. I am not a smelly hippie. Like Michael Phelps, I chalk those days up to youthful indiscretion. There is nothing odd about me, though everyone I ever met might contend otherwise. I am just a regular guy. Along with most of the rest of the people who live in this great city by the shore of the Puget Sound, I am cool, but not because I am here.
Now let me get back to those dubious contraptions lazily attempting to pass as functioning art that the city is replacing on street parking with. If The Dead Baby Bike Race was run every weekend, and its starting point was The Market, this wack rack might be appropriate. Parking is a already a big time commodity here on The Hill, I know many who pay monthly to secure parking, and when you add that to the already rising cost of life, it does not make sense to take the space where a car might park.
Owning a car is an obvious indicator of financial solvency, and this is just the kind of consumer that a business wants around. Additionally, the guy who drives a car can take more stuff away, and this makes him more likely not to restrain his spending than the person who is carrying things home by bicycle.
In the summer time when people are about in force, the sidewalks, though continually abuzz, are never maxed out to the point of people spilling into the streets. Parking is always in short supply during the peak season.
That walkway outside The Market is spacious, epic even, and it could easily accommodate a row of the standard rail racks, or even a bunch of those inverted U racks, running the length of the block. They could even provide a modest line of defense in case the Defend Capitol Hill gang decides to get serious and go for it. Some quick math reveals that even if those circle racks with the bicycle stencils are used, the number of bikes that could be accommodated rivals, and even exceeds the on street rack.
From Moriza's Flickr feed - http://www.flickr.com/photos/moriza/308483890/
The reason that the City Council has decided to replace the parking spaces is purely political, and they are merely pandering to the multitudinous cyclists/voters throughout our fair city. Their decision to go along with the Bicycle Master Plan is a mostly great idea, but with the economy in shambles, we should trying to accommodate all shoppers, but not at the expense of one buying demographic versus another.
Please don’t misunderstand me, I ride, and have for over ten years. When I immigrated to Seattle, to be a part of an enterprise that eventually raided by Seattle Vice because of paranoia and egomania, I left my car behind. Life has been swell ever since.
Between walking, Metro, and my bike, our oyster is within reach with minimal effort. It is a healthy way to exist. Seriously, I am part of the solution, and you can be to. It will change everything about you. Get a bike and ride it and see what I mean.
Rodney King was like some kind of prophet, whose words transcended all of time, when he pleaded with us to, “Just get along”. Tensions rise between cyclists and drivers when the City Council is giving the appearance of pandering to their constituency as opposed to serving it. We certainly want to encourage cycling in this here town, but not at the expense of parking in a major retail location. There is no reason why Martin’s dream and Rodney’s plea cannot be realized by riders and drivers peacefully and securely coexisting.
The fact of the matter is that most people drive to where they are going to, and Pavlov did make a very good point. The large chain stores that pay rent at The Market might be able to weather the current economic storm with ease, but the little guys need all the help they can get right now, and making the neighborhood one parking spot lighter is not a way to encourage commerce between the neighborhoods.
Ride a bike. It really will change your life.
Seriously.
