Washington D.C.'s central train station is getting an amazingly attractive sleek glass & metal bike garage for it's bicycle commuters.
"Some people say it's a half-football or a shell," says Mazen Soueidan, the project manager. "It has four sides [with] scalloped shells that overlap."
The Bikestation will hold 130 bikes plus have lockers, and even a small shop for repairs. It will be a more secure place to keep your bike since we all know how sketchy it can be locking up to a parking meter for any amount of time. As well as the added security the hope is to reduce traffic and encourage exercise (since many of Americans haven't had constant exercise since gym class in high school). In California 30 percent of Bikesation users who used to previously commute by car, now commute by mainly just bicycle. To offset its costs the Bikestation will either require an annual membership fee or just a daily usage fee.
"This is a monumental paradigm shift for the typical American," says Don Paine of Washington's KGP Design Studio, lead architect on the design.
Paine says introducing the system to Washington is part of a larger shift toward "dispelling the notion that the car is an essential part of our daily lifestyle."
John Ciccarelli of Bicycle Solutions in San Mateo, Calif., agrees. "What's growing is acceptance that the bicycle is a mode of transportation as well as recreation," he said.
The interior of the Bikestation
Another outside view
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