With all the talk about expanding the number of Hubway bike rental stations in the North End and the Neighborhood Council’s efforts toward residential parking, North Ender Tommy-K Mayer has noticed the need for simple bike racks. She sends in this photo of bicyclists patronizing Bova’s Bakery with no place to lock their bikes. She says:
How much of the metal camped curbside is doing anything productive? One curbside space retrofitted with a bike rack would have allowed walkers to walk on the sidewalk.
In the suburbs, “free” parking is a driveway that you buy & pay annual property taxes on. No one had a “right” to free curbside parking. Driving is a privilege & a responsibility.
Yes yes yes! We desperately need more bike racks. People lock up their bikes along the sidewalks on light posts and rails and then there’s not enough space to get by – let alone strollers or wheelchairs. Sometimes these bikes fall while locked up and there’s no space at all to pass by. There are also so many more people on bikes now since the bike shop opened on Commercial and the bike lanes were created. Bikes racks need to be a high priority – so sidewalks are safe.
The planned mini-park at Salem St. & Bartlett Pl. is supposed to include bike racks. See the rendition at the bottom of this post:
http://northendwaterfront.com/2013/03/bartlett-place-pocket-park-redesign-gets-thumbs-up-at-public-meeting-video/
Speaking of which, wasn’t that “parklet” set to be finished by now? There’s not much to it, so I don’t understand what’s taking so long.
What I was told is that it will be black-topped when they repave all of Salem and I believe that is scheduled for after Labor Day because they didn’t want to disrupt the feasts. See Phase 3 on this post:
http://northendwaterfront.com/2013/06/salem-street-construction-schedule-from-boston-public-works/
They should eliminate a parking spot on every street and replace it with a bike rack
Uggg the LAST thing we need is less parking spots. I am all for bike racks, and am I biker myself, but please don’t take away any more spots it is hard enough to find parking!
Enough with your precious parking spots.
Salem Guy, we know you don’t have a car and don’t care about those who do, but clearly the vast majority of North End residents do have cars and do need places to park. The neighborhood just doesn’t have enough parking for the number of residents that need/own cars.
Now I need to take issue with the quote from Tommy-K Mayer at the beginning…North Enders pay taxes to the city, just as people in the suburbs do to their towns. One of the services that the city provides is parking for residents in neighborhoods. To say that we don’t have a “right to free curbside parking” is asinine. We pay taxes to support the city, and we get certain perks because of this. Please take that same attitude you display with your quote above to any neighborhood resident after they’ve driven around for an hour looking for a parking spot and see how it goes.