Over the past few years the City of Melbourne has currently installing more bike hoops around the CBD, permitting more cyclists to securely park their bikes. But what happens when one of the hoops is placed in a stupid place?
Back on 29 January 2018 I spotted this example near the corner of William and Bourke Streets – a bike rack running 90 degrees to the road and blocking the footpath.
I tweeted about it the next day, and a week later the City of Melbourne entered the discussion – agreeing that they were stupidly placed.
They are part of our target to provide an additional 2000 on-street bicycle parking hoops by 2020. We have arranged for the hoops to be reorientated to 45 degrees so that there will be more space available on the footpath for pedestrians.
— City of Melbourne (@cityofmelbourne) February 6, 2018
Presumably cyclists thought the same thing, as the bike hoops were often empty, compared to the hoops across the street.
Presumably cyclists didn’t want their valuable bike jutting out into the footpath, ready to be smashed into by passing pedestrians.
But some still took the risk.
But eventually the City of Melbourne got around to doing what they promised – a year later in February 2019 the bike hoops had been cut off at footpath level, and two new hoops installed parallel to the kerb.
Leaving clear space for pedestrians.
Footnote
I guess we should count ourselves lucky that these bike hoops were never noticed by business owners – advertising bikes are even worse.
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