Secured storage area?!? For bicycles?!? Whatnow?!?
Several days later, this appears:
Several days later, this appears:
By golly, that's a big ol' fenced-in cage around the bike rack area. For several days, it had no gate (you can just make out the opening on the right edge of my photo), so I wondered if we were just going to count on the social-psychological pressure of a fence coupled with the legendary niceness of Iowans to protect our bikes, but just yesterday, it got a gate controlled by the same Borg-cube entry credentials that let people into the building.
This is awesome news for me (though likely ho-hum news for you), as I've lost a couple headlights and a rain jacket (during friggin' Bike Month, no less) to pilferers. I'd even taken to stashing my bike elsewhere in the parking garage, off street level and away from the prying eyes of passers-by.
Now, before we commend my employer too loudly for this act of generosity, let's remember that the same employer provides lavish gym and locker room facilities on all of its other campuses around Des Moines, while only recently adding a small locker room with a couple showers for the downtown peons. They also put an electric car charging station in this garage long before the secured bike parking, when the number of bikes locked up each day far surpasses the one friggin' Chevy Volt that I see plugged in maybe once a week. And given the state of our downtown facilities, I'm wary of how long that keycard reader is going to work and how quickly it will get fixed when it stops working. I'm just imagining being locked out of the cage with my ride home trapped inside...
But hey, progress. They might just get this whole biking thing figured out by the time I retire.
1 comment:
Congrats on getting proper parking! I have to admit to being a bit jealous... my bike parking facility consists of a bike rack located at the edge of a parking lot and almost on a sidewalk. It's in the middle of a cornfield, so to speak, so there's almost no risk of theft. The risk of rain and snow, however, is quite significant.
While I'm here, can I complain about the lack of a locker room & shower? I work in a huge office building that is a converted factory. When it was being converted, I pestered everyone I could find to see if there was some way to add lockers, a changing area, etc. I got lots of "well, let's see what we can do", which is just a polite way of saying "not a chance in hell".
Of course, my employer is a humble, small, multi-national corporation that is one of the Dow industrials, so how could they afford to sneak a small locker room in?? Well, they could have retained the locker room that was already there for the shop guys!! It killed me when I saw that they tore it out to make an executive lunch room.
Anyway... I'm glad that your employer is a bit more enlightened, or perhaps more profitable? I hope that your bike can now spend the day protected from the petty thieves, miscreants and weather.
Steve in Peoria
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