January 8, 2015
by Bikeyface
Shop Blocked
As I was shopping this holiday I went to a mall. And it suddenly occurred to me that, for some reason, I hadn’t gone to a mall in a very very long time.
It’s one of those little lifestyle shifts that has happened with biking. I find myself almost exclusively patronizing small neighborhood shops.
But that makes sense. When you’re walking and biking why go to shopping areas whose entrances send the message “KEEP OUT!”?
People on bike are good for business!! I like to shop at merchants that have bike parking and I spend more time inside if I can also see my bike while shopping.
In the amount of time it takes to walk from Macy’s to Best Buy I can bike from my favorite sandwich shop in Southie, to my favorite clothing store in Cambridge. The whole city is my “mall” just like it was originally designed.
It will be really great if all those bike parkings were placed on the road, not in the sidewalk. Dont you think so? As you manage the layout of your designs, you decide.
Lovely, direct and full of truth draws, as always
Love this! I can’t believe how many areas don’t even have sidewalks let alone bike parking. I will go to the shops that want me there 🙂
I live and cycle in a much smaller town compared to Boston and it’s immediate neighbors, so I have a smaller pool of local shops to patronize, but they do get as much of my business as possible. Not the least of which are my two favorite watering holes. Both of them have a wide selection of craft brews on tap, and one of them has direct access to the local bike trail!
I find this kind of funny – all of the shopping malls in my hometown are basically the opposite of what’s depicted here. They had bike parking out the front at every entrance, and lots of it too, although typically not enough, because it was almost always full! They knew that if they did that, they could get kids to come in, and the kids that worked there would have somewhere to park their bikes too. They had plenty of footpaths/sidewalks, to allow easy access from the parking lots. They also had a large number of bus stops for people not on bikes. This is in car centric Australia too, not some forward thinking progressive city.
Malls are cold monoliths, they look like mausoleums…
It’s designed to keep you in and not be free…
It’s also become a baby sitter for unattended unsupervised teens and kids
I think CPS should monitor the entrances…sad
Plus lack of bike racks.
How do you get into the mall? Follow the cars.
Our local mall had no bike parking, so everyone locked their bikes to the railing next to the handicapped ramp, which was near the front entrance.
Then one day a nasty sign appeared that warned us our bikes would be removed if we parked there, and we had to put our bikes in the garage. So they were forced to install bike racks because bike riders insisted on their right to shop at the mall, although they acted like dicks with their WARNING signs.
I shop sometimes at the malls outside the city. I have never seen anybody else with a bike. Bike parking is not a problem. I just lock the bike just outside the entrence. The real tricky part is to find a bike road the first time I visit a new mall. Cars have big straight roads with signs. Bike roads goes here and there and have no signs.
you’re meant to ride around in the mall. most people don’t know that. that’s why there is nice flat polished ground.
@crank: I disagree. Riding a bike in a mall has the same problems as riding on a crowded sidewalk: too many chances for bike/pedestrian collisions. At most, it might be OK to walk a bike inside a mall, but riding, I think, is out of the question. The nice flat polished ground is there for ease of maintenance and for disability access (along with no or minimal thresholds, escalators, and elevators).
@morlamweb – I think you will find that @crank was being facetious
@BentGirl: perhaps, but such subtleties don’t come across well in the written form. This is why I hate responding to comments. It doesn’t appear at all facetious to me. In any case, I’d hope to dissuade anyone who reads that comment from actually biking inside a mall.
Seniors go ‘mallwalking’ all the time, Malls open early so people can walk around inside. Since malls are slowly dying (losing customers), it’s probably only a matter of time until malls open early (or late) for bikers.
http://www.archdaily.com/576098/10-points-of-a-bicycling-architecture/
The airport nearest my home, BWI shows up on maps as being bicycle accessible. You can pedal right up to the cell phone lot and even enter a garage, but to actually access the airport, you have to drive on a ramp that is so much like an expressway ramp, I am loathe to try it. It isn’t marked a verboten to bicycles, but I would certainly hate to find out the hard way.
But wouldn’t it be nice to cycle up to the American Airlines counter, check my bike in as sports equipment (like golf clubs, skis, snow boards which all fly free …. no so cycles) and pic it up on the other end?
Ahh. It is to dream.
Bike racks that aren’t bolted down are an insincere “get lost message”. Especially when Home Depot has the tools to fix the problem.