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Permalink Reply by Haddon on June 12, 2013 at 1:59pm

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Permalink Reply by SlowCoachOnTheRoad on June 12, 2013 at 10:49pm

That is pretty cool - weird to see one's bike go in like toast in the toaster but come out in pristine shape.  Weird too to think of our having just made it to work without relying on fossil fuels (e-bikes notwithstanding) and then have some huge machine burn up precious resources to whisk one's bike to some subterranean shelf.  But I guess the more bikers in a city the more we introduce a space problem and the need for fee-based space usage like car garages provide today.  Definitely clever.  I wonder if one ever puts in one's rusty old second hand tattered Schwinn and gets back by mistake someone's shiny new multi-thousand dollar Peugeot?

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Permalink Reply by Allen Wrench on June 13, 2013 at 1:28am

Here's an old post that will tell you more about japan and bicycles. Google bike parking in japan images to see what kind of mode share bikes have there. They are everywhere!

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Permalink Reply by Crazy David 84 Furlongs on June 13, 2013 at 6:18am

This is the kind of "great" bicycle storage that should be looked into for the Chicago loop.  It should work particularly well as much of the loop is actually "elevated in that ground is one or two stories below the ground floor.   Imagine pulling up to the outside of your office and being able to park you bicycle with this system and know that it is going to be out of the bad weather and away from bad actors.   And it doesn't require navigating garages or basements or similar areas.   Imagine, for example, a station located on Wacker Drive right at LaSalle.  

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Permalink Reply by SlowCoachOnTheRoad on June 13, 2013 at 6:29am

Wow!  Amazing amount of bikes in Japan.  I am blown away.  I had no idea.  But actually, I remember getting out of a train station in London - the one that was closest to South Bank (Waterloo maybe) and seeing hundreds of bikes at an outdoor biking facility that was part of Waterloo station.  Not as many as Japan but still compared to Chicago a mob!   I also borrowed a bike from a neighbor of where I was staying and took the bike on the train from Richmond to South Bank where the Critical Mass was to take place.  Great way to see the city.  We went past the Houses of Parliament, Westminster Cathedral, and over to Buckingham Palace.  There were many more  bikers in London but it seemed they had just as hard a time maneuvering the car traffic as here - actually worse!

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Permalink Reply by Tony Adams on June 13, 2013 at 6:54am

This is pretty cool. But a far simpler solution - or at least a fix that would alleviate much of the downtown bike parking and security shortage would be to get ALL office buildings to allow bikes in offices. My experience is anecdotal of course, but every office I've ever worked in had more than enough space to stash a bike for each employee in the workers' cubicles or offices.  

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