College Park Bike & Ride Under Construction
This week, Metro’s contractor began constructing our first secure bicycle parking facility at the College Park garage. In the spirit of our “Park & Ride” facilities for vehicles, this facility will be called a “Bike & Ride.”
Temporary fencing is up around the site now while a new concrete slab is poured. Steel walls are being fabricated and will be installed over the coming weeks, along with new lighting, cameras, doors, and of course bike racks. We should be finished with construction this winter – unfortunately just as cold weather begins to discourage many cyclists, but the timing will allow us to work out any kinks before the spring. As with any pilot project, this will be a learning process for us and you, so bear with us as we work through the logistics.
A few more details: WMATA’s Parking Office will be responsible for daily operations, and has teamed up with BikeLink to help distribute key cards to customers, administer accounts, and provide 24-hour customer support. BikeLink runs similar facilities in Portland, San Francisco, Las Vegas, and others. Initially, we plan to charge users 5 cents/hour for most of the day, and 2 cents/hour during overnight hours. The off-peak discount is designed for customers who want to park their bike overnight as a “station bike.” This will work out to about 50 cents/day for most commuters.
We have laid out space to park over 100 bicycles in the facility, which will nearly double the amount of bicycle parking on racks and lockers at the station now. At right (below) is a sample of our architectural plans.
We’ll post updates in the future here as the project progresses. Stay tuned!
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