It looks like Bike Day all over again
I am lovin' all the bikers that converge on the Grove on weekend mornings. It looks like Miami Bike Day all over again.
I think we really do need more bike racks, this proves it. I wonder if these guys who park their bikes at Le P'tit Paris, realize that the guitar across the street is a bike rack.
Photos by Harry Emilio Gottlieb
posted by Tom Falco at 3:30 PM
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9 Comments:
The random scattering of bikes lends a nice air of friendly casualness to the place, not necessarily a bad thing. I know that Harry would like to have some utilitarian bike racks so that everyone was nicely lined up, but it's not self-evident that that would be an "improvement".
There is no need to have bikes leaning against trees, parking meters, signs, lamp posts or obstructing the sidewalks for pedestrian. Let’s look at successful communities that have figured out how to best encourage bike friendliness, reduce dependency on cars and have increased pedestrian commerce. Some of the best examples are South Beach, Seattle, Portland and Amsterdam. Miami with all of its recent bike events still has a lot to learn about improving bike lanes and increasing utilitarian bike racks. Coconut Grove should have been inspired by bike friendly communities long before know. But it is never too late for new beginnings. We need not reinvent the wheel. All we have to do is install more useful bike racks, invite cyclists to ride here, come by Metroail or bus with their bikes and install a few safe bike lanes. This will result in a more popular Coconut Grove that will benefit cyclists (near and far), our community and our merchants. It will also be possible for a certain self-anointed Green Politician to get a few more Green photo opportunities before he rides his tricycle bike off into the sunset. Everyone wins.
Harry Emilio Gottlieb
I remember two meetings where you were asked to lead the movement and start a committee to get bike racks in the Grove. You flat out said NO at both meetings. Me thinks though doest protest too much.
The CGVC had a meeting last month at the Glass House which I attended to see what their plans were for the Grove. They had a youngman conducting the meeting who knew less then nothing about the Grove, its issues or possible solutions. Apparently the chairman had more import things to do. The young man said he was going to assign me the task of heading a Grove bike rack committee to sturdy the situation. Yes I was invited to head a committee and I declined the offer. I said I had much on my plate and would have to pass on his invitation. The CGVC needs to do more then just ask for volunteers to head committees to study Grove problems and make suggestions for solutions that may never get implemented. Some of us expected the CGVC to do more to improve our Post Office. But that task was left to a few of us that actually stepped into the void, saw the problem, got the attention of the Miami Herald, received the support of the Coconut Grove Grapevine, worked with our commissioner and his chief of staff, met with our neighbors, met with the USPS folks and attended several meetings with our congresswoman. Our Grove Post Office is vastly improved from the way we found it about 8 months ago. Unfortunately the CGVC did not address the Post Offcie problem until after we did. They should have been the ones to champion its much needed improvements and establish better communications with the USPS years ago. I am pretty confident that more improvements will ultimately be made to the Grove that include utilitarian bike racks to help make the Grove a truly bike friendly community. But as of yet I have little faith that the present CGVC will have much positive impact in that area either. I would like to be proven wrong. Harry Emilio Gottlieb
Grove,
Those cyclists will never use that guitar bike rack.
1) Those are not recreational riders. They are riding for fitness and they pay a lot of money to have fast light-weight bikes. Therefore, carrying a bike lock is out of the question. This means they will not be able to lock their bikes to the rack.
2) They pay a lot of money for those bikes. The wheels on that dark colored bike next to the yellow one cost several hundred dollars. That's just the wheels. Even if that bike were locked to a bike rack, the cyclist will be nervous about leaving it unattended and out of their site.
Therefore, the bikes will be positioned near their table and within line of site.
Yes those bikes in the photos are expensive racing bikes. They are not locked up and remain in the sightline of the cyclist. They ride on weekends and are most appreciated in the Grove. Snow skiers also keep an eye on their skis by placing them in racks near their tables and seldom locking them when lunching on a mountain top restaurant. Cyclist with expensive biked also will be willing to place their bikes in a convenient rack near their table and keep an eye on it without a lock if the rack is available and wont scratch the bike. Bike events that take place on the Rickenbacker Causeway often provide temporary bike racks that are used to accommodate bikes by supporting the bike from the handlebars. The bikes are safe, no locks are required and the cyclist can keep an eye his/her bike. But the primary purpose of installing more utilitarian bike racks in the Grove is to accommodate the average cyclist that uses a bike as a form casual recreation or daily transportation. Consider the success that Lincoln Road has obtained with making it a real bike friendly destination. The 50 or so stainless steel U shaped bike racks and multi-bike racks are almost always filled to capacity. The Grove can learn a lot from their success in bringing in more cyclist and shoppers. Harry Emilio Gottlieb
The Village Council acts through subcommittees. We are a group of volunteers whose mission is to identify issues of interest to the Grove's residents and to bring the Grove's needs to the attention of our local government. Residents interested in various issues get involved through our subcommittees: The Waterfront Working Committee, Tree Watch, Planning and Zoning Committee, recently the FPL Committee. Without interested residents' involvement it would be impossible for us to get anything done. We don't have staff and we have full time jobs. The merchant/resident subcommittee meeting of which you speak was run by our newest member, Adam Weirich. Adam has lived in the Grove for at least ten years and is part-owner of Barracuda. If you think he doesn't know anything about the Grove, maybe it's because as the leader of that meeting, he was interested in listing to what other people had to say. That was the point of the meeting, after all, to learn about the issues and find ways to address them.
I hope you and anyone else who is interested in getting better biking facilities in the Grove will go to the City's Bike Summit at Jose Marti Park at 6 pm on June 15. They will be asking about things like where we want bike racks.
*groan*
The answer is not more committees. Its the same problem that the city has with all of these "experts".
a brightly painted guitar shaped sculpture does not entice tying a bike to it. It is intimidating. Too clever by half
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