The City of Los Angeles will soon be expanding its bike corral pilot program to further evaluate the Department of Transportation”s bike corral design and placement. A bike corral is an on-street parking facility for bicycles. It can typically accommodate 10 to 16 bicycles by re-purposing one or two motor vehicle parking spaces. Earlier this year, L.A. got its first bike corral on the ground in front of Cafe de Leche in the community of Highland Park. The pilot project has been a valuable learning experience for the Department and allows us to move forward with future bike corral facilities in the City. More on the pilot expansion below the fold.
Los Angeles will soon be getting more bike corrals
The Benefits of Bike Corrals
Bike corrals make more efficient use of a vehicle parking lane in areas with high cycling demands. They are especially useful in areas with narrow sidewalks where it would be impractical to install a sidewalk rack. Bike corrals can also:
- Provide additional parking to serve local businesses (10 bikes vs. one car = a better customer to parking space ratio)
- Provide a permanent buffer between pedestrian activities on the sidewalk and motor vehicle traffic on the street
- Create a de-facto curb extension, shortening pedestrian crossing distances at intersections
- Increase the visibility of bicycling in the area
- Improve sight lines and visibility at intersections for motor vehicle drivers (by ensuring that larger vehicles do not park at street corners)
- Improve the visibility of businesses from the street, by eliminating the parking of large vehicles in front of the businesses.
Portland Bike Parking: Corral vs Oasis from Streetfilms on Vimeo.
So how can businesses begin requesting bike corrals?
The Process and Agreement
With our current pilot project, a local business has agreed to maintain the bike corral while the City agreed to pay for its installation. Other cities including Portland, Oregon have used this method – although that city maintains some of its corrals too. Our maintenance agreement dictates that:
- The Bike Corral and adjacent parking spaces will be cleared of debris at least once per week
- The business owner will regularly maintain any landscaping plantings added to the facility design
- The facility will be visually inspected at least once per week
- Businesses will need City approval to alter the Corral
- The City has the right to remove the corral if obligations are not met
- Click on the link to view and download the full Bike Corral Maintenance Agreement
If you are a business owner that is interested in having a bike corral outside of your establishment, please fill out our interest form and we’ll be in contact with you shortly.
So, will we finally get the corral at Hel-Mel? I got six businesses to request it (now down to five as Pure Luck closed), and Orange 20 has agreed to the maintenance, and all this is on file with LADOT and Garcetti’s office.
So how about it?
Hey Rick,
It’s at the top of our list :)
I don’t find the Portland corral shown in the video to be an attractive design. The ugly looking plastic bollards and the method of blocking it off from traffic using plastic reflectors on concrete barriers would be a no-go for many neighborhoods as it’s not aesthetically pleasing.
Due to spacing provided by a bike lane, the bike corral at Cafe de Leche doesn’t need to have a barrier to prevent the bikes from being pulled out of the rack and into moving traffic. When a bike lane is not there, how is LADOT going to prevent that from happening without making it as ugly as the Portland design?
I mentioned in a earlier post the 2009 Oakland bicycle parking guideline that provides some examples of bike corrals from different cities starting on page 52 of the report:
http://www.actia2022.com/pdfs/bikeped/APBP%20Bicycle%20Parking%20Guidelines%20presentation.pdf
The Seattle bike corral on page 61 seems to be the same design that Long Beach is using. This has a nice looking steel design that prevents the bikes from being accidently pulled from the rack into moving traffic. The design at CycleHoop.com is very similar, as I mentioned in a earlier post. The downside is the cost of purchase and if a vehicle hits it, then the whole corral frame would have to be replaced.
Chicago, NYC, Seattle, Portland and St. Petersburg have all used standard parking lot style concrete stops to surround the bike corrals. Inexpensive, off the shelf design, proven to be long lasting, sturdy and they can be applied into a clean, fairly good looking design as the St. Petersburg example shows.
As Dennis points out, the corrals should be easily accessible yet not be vulnerable for careless motorists to ram into. Also, what is LADOT’s thoughts on motorcycles parking in bike corrals? It happens regularly at the York corral…
I think tasteful, well spaced bollards could go a long way to make the corrals attractive to the urban setting while protecting bicycles parked there like the example from Berkeley I have shared a handful of times http://www.flickr.com/photos/walkeaglerock/5255542487/in/set-72157625476046153
I’m applying for a bike corral in Los Feliz. Don’t hate! Celebrate!
Here’s a Streetfilm video explaining that New York City’s first bike corral was installed to improve visibility at an intersection:
http://www.streetfilms.org/making-streets-safer-with-on-street-bike-parking/
Lack of visibility from allowing parking all the way to the corner is not a problem we have in Los Angeles, but it is interesting to see the NYC corral and the impetus for the creation of it.
This is terrific news. Lack of visibility due to illegal parking in red zones near the corner is a common problem in LA (e.g., streetcorner where I live). Too bad bike corrals can’t be installed on residential streets.
[...] Senior Bicycle Coordinator Michelle Mowery gave us an update on the bicycle parking program, including a discussion on bike corrals. Taking what we’ve learned from the York Blvd. Bike Corral Pilot Project, we will soon be expanding the program to other parts of the City. LADOT is looking for more locations to expand the project, if you know of any locations that come to mind please let us know! Any potential corral would likely replace one or two metered spaces. Additionally, a majority of businesses in the area must be on board with the corral, and one of these businesses has to “adopt” the corral via a maintenance agreement. More information on the coming expansion is available here! [...]
One suggested place might be Trader Joe’s in Westwood (1000 Glendon Ave) as it gets a lot of bike traffic due to its huge student population.
[...] Do You Own a Business? Do You Want a Bike Corral? Here’s How to Get One in LA (LADOT Bike Blog) [...]
Let’s spread Some Eco-Karma…
I would really love to see bike corrals available for yoga studio patrons. Considering they are already inclined to be healthful individuals, it won’t be such a stretch for them extend some ‘eco-karma’ to our beautiful L.A. also.
Each time I see 30-40 yoga-mat carrying people come in and out of the many yoga studios around L.A., they would all hop into and out of their cars. This nearby studio in particular can utilize at least 30 parking spaces around its perimeter.
Instead, it would be so wonderful to see at least half of these beautiful Angelenos get on their bikes instead, assuming most of those patrons probably live just a few blocks away.
[...] Lake’s new bike corral is the second project to come to fruition from our Bike Corral pilot expansion. We are still looking for potential locations throughout the City of Los Angeles for additional [...]
[...] Lake’s new bike corral is the second project to come to fruition from our Bike Corral pilot expansion. We are still looking for potential locations throughout the City of Los Angeles for additional [...]
[...] the continued expansion of our Bike Corral pilot program, L.A. now has two corrals with more coming soon. The LADOT Bike Program has been working with local [...]
[...] the continued expansion of our Bike Corral pilot program, L.A. now has two corrals with more coming soon. The LADOT Bike Program has been working with local [...]
There is a spot just in front of Kaldi coffee shop on Glendale Blvd in Atwater (which gets tons of pedestrian and bicycle traffic for this part of town), which would serve excellently. There is already a little triangle area that is a “no parking” zone, and a coral there would be great. I ride there consistently and the few bike racks on the street there are usually taken with much spill-over to local parking meters.
[...] got the chance to work on some interesting projects. A big thank you to Tony Ho for his work on the Bicycle Corral Pilot Expansion. Also special thanks to John Sam, Craig Greene, everyone at the LADOT sign shop and the work crews [...]