Nine bike racks were installed around Royal Oak during the past year thanks to the DDA and SMART, but that’s not enough for a city of this size.

One solution is to require new developments and streetscaping projects to include bicycle racks from the beginning. It’s often cheaper and certainly easier to install them during construction than to add them later.

That said, it’s frustrating to see this not happening, especially since the Master Plan calls for making Royal Oak more bicycle friendly.

Two recent examples are on tonight’s city commission agenda: the massive EMagine Theater project and two streetscaping projects.

We’ve sent the following public comment to the Commission:

Dear City Commission,

I cannot attend tonight’s Commission meeting, but would like to share two concerns relevant to tonight’s agenda.

Bicycle Parking at Emagine

First, the Emagine Theatre PUD does not appear to include any bicycle racks or bicycle parking.

I would recommend that this project provide adequate bicycle parking per the Association of Pedestrian and Bicycle Professional’s Bicycle Parking Guidelines.

The city of Portland (Oregon) also provides good estimates for minimum bicycle parking spaces. For major entertainment businesses, the minimum is 10 spaces or 1 space per every 40 seats.

Bicycle Parking in Streetscaping

I would suggest that all Royal Oak streetscaping projects include bicycle racks. This is especially valuable when the streetscaping is along bus transit lines, as the LA Fitness project is. Bicycle racks are included in the city of Detroit streetscaping projects.

I believe these are low-cost and reasonable requests that are in line with the Master Plan’s goal of making the community more bicycle friendly. It’s certainly less expensive to plan for parking now rather than after the fact.

I would certainly be willing to assist in any way to help make these happen.

Todd Scott

Tags: bike parking, Royal Oak

This entry was posted on Monday, December 21st, 2009 at 7:53 pm and is filed under Planning. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.