LADOT understands that safe parking is integral to encouraging bicycling in Los Angeles. Providing safe, secure bicycle parking can increase accessibility to local neighborhood destinations. The benefits are two fold: bicyclists enjoy convenient, secure bicycle parking, while local businesses enjoy the increased patronage. LADOT offers a free – and highly utilized – sidewalk bike rack request program that allows any business owner or citizen to request bicycle racks for commercial areas. Getting a shiny new bike rack in a place that you requested can be a fulfilling experience. Find out how your request goes from request to rack below the fold.
“Webchecking”
Once you submit your request, the information goes into our email system. Jose Elias, Assistant Bicycle Coordinator in charge of LADOT’s Sidewalk Parking Program then enters each request into our Bicycle Rack Database. Jose then checks to ensure that requests are within city limits and in commercial areas. At this point, requests are considered to be “webchecked.”
Assistant Bicycle Coordinator Jose Elias - our bike parking guru
“Marked”
After being webchecked, a list is populated that is then checked to further ensure that the location can accommodate bike racks. To find out what locations qualify, check out our sidewalk parking program guidelines here. Requests that are deemed appropriate will then be mapped for a field check. We then go out into the field with our stencil and paint spray cans to mark your individual requests! Before marking, we like to talk with business owners to tell them about our bike rack program and the benefits of providing prominent bike parking right in front of their businesses.
Assistant Bicycle Coordinator JoJo Pewsawang marking a future rack location in Chinatown
“Installed”
After marking a future bike rack location, we then edit the Bicycle Rack Database to reflect that fact. Once a month, we provide this list to our contractor who then heads out to each location to install the racks. Rack installation times can vary depending upon our contractor’s workload. Typically, we mark by council district so our contractor can efficiently install racks without having to crisscross the City.
Bike Rack Requests
Now that you know the process behind filling bike rack requests, we hope that it has inspired you to request some more! You can complete our online bike rack request form here and in the not to distant future (if you followed our selection criteria) you’ll have a nice shiny new bike rack in front of your favorite local business.
Nice! But I’m curious: why use round tubes (which I’ve heard are susceptible to pipe-cutters) rather than square tubes?
I suggest that LADOT start putting bicycle racks at high capacity, on-street, bus stops. That could be bus stops along Van Nuys Blvd, Ventura Blvd, Wilshire Blvd, Vermont Ave, Santa Monica Blvd, etc. Just check which streets have a Rapid bus line and you’ve probably discovered the streets that I mean. The Orange Line BRT is a great example of how bike racks can encourage both biking and transit use. At many of the bus stops along this route there can be several bikes parked at both the staple racks and along the fence. This is especially true at the Canoga Blvd stop.
Here’s a video of a city in the Netherlands, where they have put shelters for bikes behind the bus stop:
Only one or two staple racks at a busy bus stop might be placed at the beginning and as the use grows, more could be added. This way you would have bike parking both for the businesses and transit users at the bus stops.
Hi Dennis,
Unfortunately we cannot place racks in bus loading zones (because they might block bus ADA access ramps). We will try out best to place them as close as possible per the guidelines.
It would be amazing if you maintained a once a month updated list of those bike racks webchecked, marked, and installed so people could have an idea if their bike rack is likely to be installed or they should give up waiting.
Hey Terry,
That’s a great idea. I’ll see what I can do.
Now, if only we could catch up to places such as Japan, where scenes such as this bike parking station by a bike path are common:
There are more pix of bike infrastructure in Japan here:
http://www.bicyclefixation.com/pe_japan.html
In Japan, nearly everybody rides, from stay-at-home moms to bank managers, and in crappy weather too. Either straight to work or to the subway station. And bike parking is everywhere!!!!
[…] and a whole host of other businesses throughout the City of Los Angeles. As we have detailed in a past post here, requests go through a process where they are checked to ensure that they follow our sidewalk […]
[…] and a whole host of other businesses throughout the City of Los Angeles. As we have detailed in a past post here, requests go through a process where we check to ensure adherence to our sidewalk parking […]
[…] needs to agree to maintain the repair station. In essence, this program complements the existing Sidewalk Parking Program and Bicycle Corral program. Whether by connecting to local schools or local businesses, the Bicycle […]
[…] needs to agree to maintain the repair station. In essence, this program complements the existing Sidewalk Parking Program and Bicycle Corral program. Whether by connecting to local schools or local businesses, the Bicycle […]
[…] like the “Bike Rack City Ride” to educate and empower the public about our bicycle sidewalk parking program. In case you’re not familiar with the program, the city offers free bicycle parking in the […]
I’ve submitted a request for the same location several times, is there any way to follow up and check on them? Thanks!
[…] should note that LADOT offers a free bike rack program, installing U-racks on request anywhere within the City of Los […]