Local groups today unveiled two bicycle lockers in downtown Burlington and Winooski in hopes of encouraging the use of alternative transportation.
Go! Chittenden County, a partnership of government and nonprofit groups, has installed BikeLink lockers outside Champlain Mill in Winooski and at the Burlington Town Center. Each locker, accessed by a keycard for registered users, has space for four bicycles. They cost five cents an hour to use.
Go! Chittenden County leaders say the lockers will strengthen the region’s burgeoning demand for alternative transportation methods. The Burlington-Winooski area is the most densely populated part of Vermont, supporters said.
The locations are near Chittenden County Transportation Authority bus stops and in downtown locations where CarShare Vermont often has vehicles available for use. “Building roads is not going to be an option for walkable and really cool communities,” Winooski city manager Katherine Decarreau said. “Hopefully, ‘alternative transportation’ will no longer have to bear that moniker ‘alternative.'”
The lockers are designed to cater to both workers who store their bikes for the day and visitors making a quick trip downtown. BikeLink users obtain an account, backed by their credit card, and receive a small plastic card that they swipe to access any BikeLink locker. Interested users can sign up at http://www.bikelink.org.
“This is an opportunity for everybody to explore their transportation options,” said Emily Boedecker, executive director of the nonprofit Local Motion.
Other Chittenden County communities have expressed interest in getting lockers, Boedecker said. The lockers cost $16,000 to install and operate for five years. Funding came from federal grants and the Vermont Agency of Transportation.
BikeLink lockers are widely available in California, but the lockers announced Thursday are the first in New England. Washington, D.C. is the only other location on the East Coast with BikeLink lockers. Boedecker said that if demand proves strong, additional lockers will be installed in the area.
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The funding for the lockers comes from Federal grants and the Vermont Agency of Transportation? Yhen why do people have to PAY for the use of them ? We’ve bought the darned things with our taxes ALREADY ! It feels an awful lot like being taxed a 2nd time for something we already paid for in the first place. Why does Uncle Sam get to double dip when they don’t allow us the same priviledge? I could really use a 2nd renter rebate this year !
@Randall–it’s because if they were free, some people would store the bikes in the lockers indefinitely, rendering the lockers unusable by other folks. The price is low–even if you left the bike in the locker overnight (say, 15 hours), it would cost you 75 cents. We’ve all seen bikes left at racks for months. It would be very sad if the same thing happened with these lockers.
$8.40 per week. Sounds like a small price to pay for secure 24-hour storage of your bike. If you think this isn’t what’s going to happen then you’ve got too rosy a view of your fellow person.
I agree with Mary Catherine… when things are free people take advantage and that’s not good for anyone. The price is low enough not to be discouraging.
My problem is that the cost ($16000) seems extremely high considering the capacity. Only (4) bikes at each location! I work in Winooski and run or bike commute all year long and I’m not encouraged to even try and use this system. What happens when I show up and it’s full? Maybe, (4) is an acceptable number based on the number of actual bike commuters in each area… but I worry that the low capacity won’t encourage adoption.
Personally, I’ve always been a fan of the covered bike parking areas in the Northwest. An awning over a bunch of bike trees where you provide your own lock. I’m sure there are issues with a system like this… snow… they’re free so people take advantage… But, the capacity is much greater and the person riding the bike can use the awning to get out of the weather.
Who knows… I’m definitely no expert, but it seems like there might be good reasons why no other communities in New England have adopted this system.
The limited slots, and the issue Greg mentions (you don’t know if there will be a spot available for you when you get there) reminds me of another capacity issue – CCTA buses. If you want to take your bike somewhere, you have no idea if there will be a spot in that buses’ rack. On routes that run frequently, you could wait another 15 or 20 minutes and take the next bus (hoping there’s a spot available). But for less frequent routes, it’s a big problem.
If the bikers will obey the rules of the road so they can get to the lockers safely.
Capacity seems to be the bigger issue here. If you want to grow and encourage bike commuting we need to build capacity so that it’s easy and reliable. Once the capacity is there, then options like super secure bike storage make more sense. In a higher capacity situation the purpose of bike lockers would be less about additional capacity and more about encouraging specific kinds of potential commuters (those with expensive bikes, or those that are especially theft averse) to actually try commuting. Basically, they would be lowering a barrier of sorts. However, in our area they feel a little cart-before-the-horse-ish.
Regardless… I’m glad we’re doing something to encourage commuting in this area. Hopefully the trend will continue and we can tackle some of the other barriers to this mode of transport in the future.
I used these lockers when I live in the San Francisco bay area and they are great. I would ride to the transit center, stash by my bike in 30 seconds without having to strip it and then hop on the bus. There were staple racks as well in case the lockers were full, but I never had a problem getting a space. I’m extremely excited to see them come to Chittenden County!
I think something more like 25¢ an hour would be more appropriate, or even $1 or $3 an hour. I understand they were paid for by transportation money but some revenue needs to be generated by the people who use them (we cyclists) to purchase more, upkeep them, and keep the program going. Anyone who balks at spending $1 an hour to keep their bike secure is fooling themselves if it gets stolen (or something stolen off it) from being outside. My wife and I bike the Champlain Islands every year and make the trip to Burlington for shopping and something to eat. We hate having to strip the accessories off our bikes and worry someone will damage them while they’re unattended. The cost would also keep people from using them as storage lockers (for other than bikes even) and could be lowered as more units come online.
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