July 22, 2014

The First Step

I've been known to complain about the United States' relative lack of slick bike infrastructure, and my impulse would be to classify Norway's Gulskogen Bicycle Hotel with the Eindhoven Hovenring in the category of bike-related-feats-of-engineering-we'll-never-halfway-replicate-stateside, but... Yes, the Gulskogen Bicycle Hotel has that concrete tongue-shaped ramp that spills out from a circular wooden border framing a metal doorway and that porous filigree pattern that sprawls across the metal doorway and gable wall (Inhabitat gushes over the "intricate filigree facade"), but...Washington, D.C. has Bikestation.

Both the Norwegian bicycle hotel and Bikestation Washington DC use a double-decker pull-out system of racks to accommodate more than 100 bikes (Norway: 134, United States: 140). The design of each facility took its surroundings into consideration. And both bikes-only parking garages aim to keep my favorite form of two-wheeled transportation both sheltered from the elements and safe from thieves.

Though area cyclists whose travels revolve around a metro other than Union Station will have to content themselves with $120/year, subject-to-availability bicycle lockers for now, District Department of Transportation Director Gabe Klein says he wants to erect modular versions of Bikestation around the city. Watch out, Norway :)
  

2 comments:

  1. Yup. I wrote about ECO Cycles in an earlier post: http://bikethievesbeware.blogspot.com/2014/02/anti-seismic-and-anti-theft-bike-parking.html

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  2. Dang, I guess you have to get up pretty early in the morning to scoop Katharine on a bike trend...

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