Forget those funky bike racks that litter the city of Pittsburgh pretending to be works of art. Instead, Councilman Peduto says we should have ads on our bike racks. That's how you know that biking has hit the mainstream.
Next, we'll have McDonald's billboards on our bike-ways.
And then we'll have the Consol Energy state park with ads on the trail markers.
When does the commodification stop?
Seriously, though, if the city can get "free" bike racks attached to its parking meters. I guess that's cool. Though I have to wonder about a plan that's intended to bring more advertising money into the Parking Authority just in time to lease the parking authority and meters. And are we just one step away from metered bike parking?
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3 comments:
This sounds like a great idea. I assume that if parking meters are leased, the revenue would go to the lessee (might be a way to sweeten what strikes me as a lame deal). It looks like Pittsburgh might be one of the first cities to install these bike racks (if they have just been introduced a couple of weeks ago). Finally, Pittsburgh might be in the forefront of something. And Peduto is turning into the guy that gets the City free stuff. First LED streetlights and now bike racks at parking meters. What’s Pat Dowd done recently?
What if we had bike rental stations all throughout town? Paris started doing this in '07 and it has been a huge success. They paid for all of the bikes through an advertising deal for the city's billboards, which covered the cost of all 10,000 bikes that are available at 750 locations throughout the city. Pittsburgh wouldn't need something on that scale but it would be kickass if bikes for rent were available all over town
Schultz, that would be great if Pittsburgh could accomplish something like that on a smaller scale. Think about how much easier it would be to get around if you could simply rent a bike at one stop, and leave it at another. Now is the time to take advantage of something like this while there's such a push to link all of our trails. Bike friendly in many ways means "visitor friendly".
EdHealth, I'm with you on that one. I support Peduto and am glad he's at least trying to do something for the city.
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