New bike racks have sprouted in downtown St. Albert, but the city may need an advertising campaign to let people know what they are.
The leaf-shaped devices are a triple-threat — a combination of public art, bike rack and a reinforcement of the city’s brand as Alberta’s botanical arts city, explained Mayor Nolan Crouse.
“For the same price, why not capitalize on all three?” he said.
Earlier this week, Coun. Len Bracko suggested the city needs some temporary signs to let people know what the racks are for. In a later interview, he said the racks are “beautifully done.”
“We just have to familiarize our residents about them,” he said.
The city paid for the racks out of its 2011 budget, which included money for bike racks as well as park-and-ride transit service to major downtown events.
Last week, five of the racks were installed next to Dr. Wes Watamaniuk’s dental office on St. Thomas Street. Another three are located on the sidewalk across the street from La Crema CaffĂ©, which is also on St. Thomas Street. Two others are located in front of the tourist office near Superstore on St. Albert Trail.
La Crema Caffé owner Robert Logue said people are bypassing the racks and chaining their bikes to the post outside his shop, just like before.
“I’m glad we got something but … I had two people go right by them. They didn’t even know they were bike racks,” Logue said.
He also questioned the functionality of the racks.
“If you had put a conventional bike rack, you put your front tire in it, you [could] have 14, 15 bikes over there. Here this is only really good for six bikes,” he said.
A standard bike rack would have created a large barrier that would have restricted the flow of pedestrians, explained community recreation co-ordinator Roy Bedford.
The locations of the new racks were carefully chosen to provide convenient access for patrons of busy events like the farmers’ market, he said.
“We continue to promote the use of park-and-ride as the solution that is able to accommodate a larger number of residents,” he said.
The racks are an off-the-shelf design that’s made in Alabama and sold through a local dealer of playground equipment, Bedford said. The price tag is $900 per rack, which includes supply, shipping and installation, he said.
Businesses are welcome to install their own bike racks if they’d like, Bedford said.
“The same as the city is not able to provide parking for every single vehicle that wants to come downtown, we install bike racks to reflect a general number, not a maximum one-time-a-year number of cyclists,” he said.
Crouse agreed that providing parking is a shared responsibility between the city and private businesses.
The city has a downtown beautification program that will pay for half the cost of improvements like blade signs and bike racks. The program has been in place for three years, with bike racks added last year. But so far only one business — Cranky’s Bike Shop — has taken advantage of the program by ordering a bike rack, said tourism development co-ordinator Joan Barber.
“I would like to see a greater uptake on the bike racks,” she said.
