A business has taken a step beyond traditional bike racks in an effort to give its cycling employees greater peace of mind.
EcoSuperior is the first organization in the city to purchase and make available to employees a bike locker, a lockable space for commuters to store their bikes.
EcoSuperior's energy and green building coordinator Raphael Shay has already taken advantage of the new locker and can see its advantages.
“The security piece of it is really important,” Shay said.
“Bike racks are perfect if you’re going in for a quick little visit, but if you’re leaving your big there all day it can start to wear on you and you can get stressed out about bikes getting stolen, which does happen far too often.”
Shay added that he recently attended a police auction, and said that there were more than 300 bikes up for auction.
The unit at EcoSuperior can fit two bikes and came at a cost of $2,500.
Shay said there are plenty of different types of units available to interested business owners, at an array of sizes and prices.
He believes the lockers encourage people to use bike transportation for their commute. With the city developing and implementing a network of bike lanes it has become easier to safely bike around the city, but it is difficult to protect the bike when left outside.
Eventually, Shay would like to see a setup similar to park-and-go systems present in other cities, where cyclists could park and lock their bikes at a hub and take public transit to access the rest of the city.
He said a recent United Kingdom study found workers who biked to work took almost half as many sick days as those who arrived via other means of transportation.
