Baseball season’s long over and the only headlines the sport is grabbing right now relates to the Mitchell Report, a laughably incomplete, carefully-sculpted sacrificial assessment of players’ steroid use that one Sports Illustrated columnist compared to a United Colors of Benetton ad.
Although not as widely covered, there’s some good news coming out of baseball too – especially for carectomy patients. San Francisco, home of Barry Bonds, the reigning home-run king whose record will forever be accompanied by an asterisk for his doping, is also encouraging alternative transportation use to access the Giants’ AT&T Park. In partnership with the San Francisco Bicycle Coalition, the park offers valet bike parking at all 81 of the Giants’ home games. The service can accommodate up to 200 bikes per game.
Video from StreetFilms:
The San Francisco Board of Supervisors passed a regulation in 1999 requiring all events with 2,000 or more in attendance to have monitored bicycle parking. Cyclists check their bikes in, receive a valet ticket, and are off to enjoy the event. Events benefit because they become more accessible and traffic congestion is reduced. People benefit for the same reason – they can roll right up to the event without sitting in blood-boiling traffic jams, forego the search for a car parking spot, and can even eliminate the stress over bike theft.
When the San Francisco Giants’ stadium opened, city officials sent out a clear message to fans that if you drive, you’ll sit in endless traffic. City initiatives like bringing the Muni mass-transit system down to the stadium and providing a bike valet have translated to over 50% of game attendants NOT driving.
Thanks to the bike-friendly legislation, the Bicycle Coalition offers valet service at events throughout the city, often on a scale far larger than at Giants’ games.
When cities make “alternative” transportation convenient and affordable, people will choose to use it. San Francisco Giants games are the perfect example. If cities could make over 50% of all transportation car-free, the world would be a very different place.
Via StreetFilms.
Photo via flickr by guano
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{ 3 comments… read them below or add one }
Driving in winter days is dangerous because the road is really slippery, which i learned the hard way. On my way home my Acura slide on a pedestrian lane that causes me to lose control of steering wheel and bump into a post that got me a few bruises a long scratched on my Acura Integra Fender Flares, so I think biking as an alternative of transportation would could be a good idea…
This has been my first year of serious cycle commuting to work in the winter. So far it has pretty great, except for the two slips I’ve had, which occured when the streets were solid ice. I think I’ll give studded tires a try next year. I think I’m providing a good example for all those winter-cycle-a-phobic people in their SUVs.
I lived (car free) in colorado a few years back and cycle commuted through winter. I just loved it! Trying to charge through snow drifts was a bit of fun. I would cycle through a high school car park which regularly had a black ice skid pan, it made a great venue for skid balance training and front wheel lock ups. I found ski goggles to be awesome during snowfall,a thin polypropylene balacava was good under the helmet, gore-tex jackets pants and gloves kept me toasty even on the coldest nights…. I live in Australia now ;D