The City of Toronto launched its new bike locker program last week. I posted on this, and one clever fellow replied, in part;
At $10 per month, this is the cheapest rent in Toronto. I’m pretty short, I think I could squish up in there with some bedding and pillows, maybe drill a few air holes. I could bring my laptop and take advantage of the free Toronto wireless Internet and it could double as my office.
Well, my friend, it would appear that you might be on to something…sort of.
The Bike Boutique of Singapore is offering a service called bikeLodgingâ„¢. BikeLodging does NOT let you bunk in your bike locker, but it does provide ample storage, bike maintenance and full shower facilities. You can store a weeks worth of office wear in the lockers and the shop will even send out your clothes for dry cleaning. Other on site perks include a massage service and juice bar. The full service costs $170 a month, including locker rental, but lockers (including bike maintenance and shower) can be rented on a daily basis for as little as $10.
The Bike Boutique’s managing director, Alex Bok, has even started a movement called iwant2bike2work.
Given Toronto’s weather, these bike parking perks — especially the showers — are very appealing. There have already been 17 heat alert days this year and 10 smog alerts. Today, we have both. Monday night was the hottest night in Toronto’s recorded history.
In a Toronto Star article today, Environment Canada’s spokesperson, David Phillips, said people should understand rising nighttime temperatures are one of the telltale signs of global warming.
You would think that cities around the world would be eager to promote — and fund — initiatives like bikeLodging.
But, although Bok and his Bike Boutique colleagues are initiating talks with government bodies in Singapore, Malaysia and Thailand about funding for this initiative, they have not made much headway…yet.
I originally read about this in a July 30th Straits Times article. Unfortunately, this is not available online for free. I can provide a copy to anyone who is interested.
Photo courtesy of http://www.iwant2bike2work.org/
5 comments
The guy could try to use the bike locker as cheap rent, but he’ll find that when the city staff do random checks and they find all his bedding in there that he won’t be able to rent any more bike lockers. So I’ve been told by city staff.
i still don’t know what to say to some people…
“you’re urging people not to drive?”
“.. yeah”
“you know that canada’s main export is auto parts?”
“..yeah?”
“so you are urging people to put canadians out of work?”
*sigh*
What a waste of space. Houses for bikes?! Toronto definitely could stand to become more bike-friendly, but this looks like an inept, backwards way to go about it. There’s already little enough space for locking bikes.
And Herb, I think the cheap renter was joking.
I would love to see less people driving and more people biking. However I would actually be quite offended if the city were to find the money to subsidize these luxurious and cheap homes for people’s bikes when it cries broke every time the subject of coughing up money to subsidize cheap homes for people comes up. “Priorities,” is the word that comes to mind here.
As it is, I have mixed feelings about the city’s new bike locker program. When the program expands beyond providing a mere 22 lucky people with safe storage for their bikes, I might be a little less critical. And when the city provides an equal number of people equally secure and inexpensive places to sleep and store their personal belongings, I will be a lot less critical.
The lockers aren’t such a bad idea, except that you can only get them a month at a time, fine for folks who want to commute by bike everyday, and work seven days a week, but what about occasional users? Suppose you work from home 3 days a week, and only bike in 2 days a week, your paying for a locker to sit empty most of the time.
Lockers do not make a lot of sense on PUBLIC property in the downtown core, they make a lot more sense in more outlying transit stations. I live about 6 blocks from Downsview Subway Station, this is an excellent place for a set of lockers, passenger density is fairly low, there is lots of space for lockers (along the fence heading towards the auto parking, and there is a drastic need for safe, intermediate term bicycle parking. If I worked downtown, I would think this is the best way to get to the subway. If you look at the fence today, you will find bikes locked to it, most of the way along, at even $0.50 per day, they would still make more money then with what they are doing.