{"id":61,"date":"2026-06-01T04:11:56","date_gmt":"2026-06-01T04:11:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/urbanatlasmedia.com\/?p=61"},"modified":"2026-06-01T04:11:56","modified_gmt":"2026-06-01T04:11:56","slug":"these-advocates-are-mapping-and-grading-every-bike-rack-in-town","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/urbanatlasmedia.com\/?p=61","title":{"rendered":"These Advocates Are Mapping \u2014 and Grading \u2014 Every Bike Rack In Town"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

A group of Las Vegas advocates are tackling one of the trickiest problems in the fight for livable streets: making sure people on bikes have a good place to lock up once they\u2019re off <\/em>the street and done with their ride. <\/p>\n

Read more Friday Video: It\u2019s Time For High Speed \u2026 Buses!<\/a><\/p>\n

Sin City cyclists recently announced that they\u2019d mapped more than 2,152 bike parking locations across the Las Vegas Valley as part of a campaign helmed by the founder of BikeRackMap.com, who lives in the area. <\/p>\n

There\u2019s no way to know exactly how much of the community\u2019s bike parking the map represents \u2014\u00a0and that\u2019s part of the problem. Because bike racks are often sited on private land \u2014\u00a0and because they\u2019re not legally required by most city building codes, unlike \u2014 many local governments have no idea where cyclists can publicly lock up, and do little to proactively increase the share of available spots.<\/p>\n

Cyclists themselves, meanwhile, have no choice but to find storage on the go, even if that means reluctantly chaining to a pole and blocking the sidewalk, or praying their ride doesn\u2019t get stolen off a shoddy, grid-style rack that all but ask thieves to pop off a front wheel and abscond with the frame.<\/p>\n

For BikeRackMap founder Craig Davis, that\u2019s simply unacceptable \u2014\u00a0and with the power of grassroots activism, it\u2019s fixable, too. <\/p>\n

\u201cTo have viable active transportation, you have to have safe, shared streets \u2014 and you have to have a safe, convenient, and secure network of excellent bike parking,\u201d Davis added.<\/p>\n

Davis says that while many city governments maintain searchable, public-facing maps of bike routes, <\/em>few have similar maps for bike racks<\/em>, making it hard to identify bike storage \u201cdeserts\u201d with no good racks for multiple blocks. The maps they do <\/em>have also tend to be published on user-unfriendly interfaces aimed at traffic planners like ArcGIS, which aren\u2019t helpful for a rider who just wants to figure out where to park for a concert. <\/p>\n

When it comes to the quality <\/em>of bike racks, meanwhile, many governments do <\/em>promote good bike parking guidelines like the ones published by the Association of Pedestrian and Bicyclist Professionals. In practice, though, it\u2019s largely up to property owners to decide whether they\u2019ll follow those guidelines, never mind exceed them by providing amenities like e-bike charging, covered bike \u201changars,\u201d or video monitoring. <\/p>\n

In Las Vegas, the vast majority of them don\u2019t clear that bar \u2014 and some are way worse than others. <\/p>\n

Read more Talking Headways Podcast: Community Severance by Road<\/a><\/p>\n

Davis and his fellow advocates recently did a survey of Albertson\u2019s grocery stores across the Valley, and nearly all of the racks were obstructed, difficult to access, hard to lock to, or otherwise lost points on the site\u2019s 10-point evaluation system. At the end of the blitz, the group gave a zero-out-of-five rating to 81 percent of the racks.<\/p>\n

\u201c[These racks] repel cyclists,\u201d the group wrote in a blog post. \u201cThey do not make a positive difference in our communities. Rather, they force shoppers to use expensive and polluting vehicles instead of clean transportation that improves our communities, planet, and shoppers mental and physical well-being.\u201d<\/p>\n

Racks at rival grocery Sprouts, though, consistently won high marks from the reviewers \u2013\u00a0a fact which they highlighted when they brought their results to Albertson\u2019s store directors to lobby for change.<\/p>\n

By making the map searchable by company as well as by neighborhood, Davis hopes advocates can pressure the property owners who build bad racks to do better \u2014\u00a0particularly if those owners are corporations with a stated commitment to promoting public health.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf cyclists don\u2019t feel that [these racks] are usable, then they won\u2019t get used,\u201d Davis adds. \u201cAnd it will be a wasted investment, whether it\u2019s from a corporation or from public dollars.\u201d<\/p>\n

With thousands of undocumented bike racks peppered across major cities, Davis acknowledges that it\u2019s not easy to create a comprehensive municipal bike storage map \u2014 and that putting that burden on advocates isn\u2019t realistic in all communities. <\/p>\n

Still, he argues that some advocates enjoy <\/em>scouting out their cities\u2019 bike storage, like one group in Reno, Nevada who mapped over a hundred locations in a single go and ended the night with pizza and beer. <\/p>\n

\u201cCyclists really want to have voice,\u201d Davis continues. \u201cThis is giving them agency in this process, and generating very unique data that local governments don\u2019t have.\u201d<\/p>\n

Read more Thursday\u2019s Headlines Have a License to Chill<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

…and you can, too. Here’s why that’s so vital.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":60,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-61","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-safety"],"yoast_head":"\nThese Advocates Are Mapping \u2014 and Grading \u2014 Every Bike Rack In Town - Urban Atlas Media<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/urbanatlasmedia.com\/?p=61\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"These Advocates Are Mapping \u2014 and Grading \u2014 Every Bike Rack In Town - Urban Atlas Media\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"...and you can, too. 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