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Permalink Reply by Far'arned Retrogrumpalunkus #63 on July 19, 2011 at 2:48am

My gut reaction is that the bike rack request has a better chance of working. 

 

There is the online web form for starters.  That is a good sign.  There is a group of city workers installing these racks and they seem to be actively adding more of them all the time -albeit at a glacial pace.  But they are constantly adding more and this is an ongoing project -not just a sporadic program.  There seems to be some momentum going with the bike racks.  Now that most, if not all, of the, "this parking meter has been retained as a courtesy to bicyclists" empty meter shells have been removed they have their work cut out for them to keep up.

 

I also feel that since this is a city-wide program that the managers of it would only wish for it to grow and expand as that means more work for them and expanding their managerial fiefdom.   Expanding the operation will only mean more supervisory money and an excuse for more of a budget next year.  I'm sure it will start out slow but they would welcome requests for new bike racks as only would help them.  To this end we (the people running the bike rack program and bicyclists of the city) have parallel goals. The fact that the reasons might differ don't detract from the end product.  We want more bike racks and they want to be the ones to put them up and expand their role as necessary public servants.

 

I believe this is unlike the abandoned bike issue where the people removing the bikes probably have other jobs they need to get done.  In fact, if the people removing abandoned bikes have anything to do with putting up more bike racks they would actually WANT more bikes parked in their racks (even abandoned ones) as it justifies their need to put up more racks and expand their role in the city public service contract.  Perhaps their refusal to make it easy to remove the abandoned bikes is related to evven more job-creation for their department and actually working on removing the abandoned bikes cluttering the racks around the city would not be in their best interests.

 

I'm mostly rambling but I think that there might be something to this.  Keep on submitting requests for new racks.  I've got  feeling that the web form is not falling on deaf ears and they welcome any excuse to grow their agency. 

 

 

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Permalink Reply by Laura Blake on July 19, 2011 at 3:30am

Ironically, I actually received an email from Chris Gagnon (bike parking program manager) last night regarding my "recent" bike rack request.  It was most likely an automated response generated by the web site, but I thought it was funny that I'd get a response for that and not my whole abandoned bike issue (see the above cited thread about that).

 

By "recent" I mean June of 2010.  I originally requested another rack for 1401 W Webster Ave last year.  I never got a response then (not even an email with a tracking number), so I recently put in another request via their website about 2 months ago.  Yes, I did see their blurb about having a shortage of bike racks last year.  I had no idea black steel tubes were so hard to come by...

 

The real kicker here is that the email I received was for the WRONG ADDRESS!  Evidently the address that was submitted was for 1401 W Weber, instead of 1401 W WEBSTER as it should have been.  I would admit to making a mistake, but I am 100% positive that I submitted it correctly.  Its almost as if they're trying to make it as difficult as possible for us.

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Permalink Reply by Spencer "Thunderball" Thayer! on July 19, 2011 at 3:32am

Ha. Yes! Thanks Horward. I was utterly uninformed about this form. I'll be sure to use it often.

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