While walking around the arts district in Asheville, North Carolina last week, I encountered a most ingenius piece of sustainable transportation infrastructure: a free public bicycle repair rack. In the past I have seen public bike air pumps before in other cities, but never one that was also integrated into a rack for hanging your bicycle, along with several accessible commonly used bike maintenance tools.
The sturdy metal rack is designed so that your bike can hang off the ground by its seat post to make basic bicycle repairs and adjustments with much less difficulty. Creating this type of smart transportation infrastructure illustrates just what sort of progressive municipality the city of Asheville is.
Building more bike lanes and related transportation infrastructure to better support bicyclists is a very wise investment. These public racks are such a simple and practical idea that can help make biking safely much easier. Every city should install these brilliant and useful devices.
About Rhonda Winter
[...] The town of Asheville, North Carolina is a beautiful gem nestled deep within the Appalachian mountains. It is a melting pot of many diverse ideas and progressive institutions, including everything from sustainable organic farmers to public bicycle repair racks. [...]