All the etiquette in the world isn’t going to make bike parking areas appear.
Amsterdam has been bike friendly for decades, there aren’t any bike racks near any of the stores I regularly ride to. And when there are racks they tend to be behind the building or off to a side where long term parking would be a risk for theft.
I usually end up stashing my bike near the entrance and then hiding it behind grills or mowers outside at hardware stores. Or flower racks (or pumpkin piles this time of year) at the grocery store.
We need bike racks in visible convenient places. And more of them.
Usually you can find some kind of sign post or light pole near the entrance of the store to chain your bike to. I’ve even chained my bike to a building’s natural gas inlet pipe before.
Yes that’s fine if your locking up a personal bike, but these are shared bikes that might be going one way (which creates a bigger problem), but can be mitigated with real parking areas. Like one car space holds a dozen bikes. It’s not hard to make room for them.
Except that making that room for them comes at a cost to someone. Someone has to give up space they were using for something else … and that usually costs money. These corporate bike companies want to use public walkways as that space, for free.
All the etiquette in the world isn’t going to make bike parking areas appear.
Amsterdam has been bike friendly for decades, there aren’t any bike racks near any of the stores I regularly ride to. And when there are racks they tend to be behind the building or off to a side where long term parking would be a risk for theft.
I usually end up stashing my bike near the entrance and then hiding it behind grills or mowers outside at hardware stores. Or flower racks (or pumpkin piles this time of year) at the grocery store.
We need bike racks in visible convenient places. And more of them.
Usually you can find some kind of sign post or light pole near the entrance of the store to chain your bike to. I’ve even chained my bike to a building’s natural gas inlet pipe before.
Yes that’s fine if your locking up a personal bike, but these are shared bikes that might be going one way (which creates a bigger problem), but can be mitigated with real parking areas. Like one car space holds a dozen bikes. It’s not hard to make room for them.
Except that making that room for them comes at a cost to someone. Someone has to give up space they were using for something else … and that usually costs money. These corporate bike companies want to use public walkways as that space, for free.