New York City's CityRacks Design Competition announced its 10 finalists yesterday and installed 9 prototypes in Astor Place (others will be placed around the city). We blogged about this competition back in May. The designs look wonderful; fresh and utilitarian at the same time. Only one design was for multiple bikes suitable for a bike corral, the rest are single sidewalk racks. The designs are to be tested by the public to see how they hold up. A jury will pick a final winner later this month. Check out a summary of the press conference and photos by Inhabitat. We salute NYC for taking the initiative to find innovative designs and re-invent the sidewalk rack and look forward to Philadelphia getting this creative.
2 comments:
Think of the innovative ideas
There are lots of easy hits for Philadelphia Bike Racks:
The Pretzel Rack
The Lawyer Rack
The Ben Franklin Rack
Liberty Bell Rack
The William Penn Rack
The SEPTA (Logo) Rack
The Cream Cheese Rack
Clothespin Rack
The LOVE Rack
The City Hall Rack
The Rocky Rack
I don't think you should get all that excited about NYC's rack competition. I see fatal flaws with nearly ever proposed design:
can only lock one wheel directly to rack,
difficult to thread u-lock to include rear wheel and frame,
only one contact point,
etc. etc.
One of the two pictured above only seem capable of locking just a wheel!!! This was a finalist?!?!
With NYC's crazy levels of bike theft, they need a design that functions first and is eye-candy second. Unfortunately all the designs seem to have reverse priorities. I was really disappointed with this competition considering I've seen some truely excellent, cool, attractive, high security designs straight out of vendor production catalogs.
Stick with you nearly indestructible "Inverted U"s Philly, at least until something prettier comes along that can still guarantee the same level of security.
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