Profs unveil high-tech bike storage solutions

For Penn professor Annette Fierro and lecturer Jenny Sabin, slinkies are more than just a toy.

The coil-shaped device, with the ability to walk down stairs, inspired the pair to design thief-proof bike racks.

Three years ago, Fierro and Sabine, both of the School of Design, were asked by the Division of Public Safety and the Architecture Department to design bike storage around campus.

After noticing that "Penn lacks biking culture," Fierro and Sabin decided they wanted to make biking a more viable transportation option for both students and faculty.

The "current bike racks [on campus] are decrepit, ugly and dysfunctional" and are "regarded as visual trash," Fierro said.

After studying traffic patterns and the way people park their bikes at Penn, the two architects came up with three new designs.

Fierro and Sabin unveiled the designs last night at a Graduate Student Center event.

The first is a traditional rack inspired by the spiral slinky toy.

Another option is a series of bike lockers, which are a secure spot for overnight parking. The only problem was that the lockers were "ridiculously ugly," Fierro said.

So the pair went to work aiming to make the lockers more visually appealing. The result was a spiral-shaped design with a woven-ribbed fabric and fiberoptic lighting that locks with a card-swiping mechanism.

The third option is even more ambitious. Known as a bike station, the design would involve a free-standing building. Fierro envisions it as a "beautiful little glass structure with a coffee shop, lockers and showers" and a secure, dry area for storing bikes. Fierro said the ideal location would be near 36th and Sansom streets, in front of Cosi.

The only thing stopping the two designers now is funding. They have been applying for numerous grants that are available for community projects or to alleviate traffic since September and will know by January if the plans are feasible. Fierro and Sabin said they do not know how much the bike lockers or station would cost to build, but they said that students and faculty would probably have to pay a fee to use them.

As of now, the University is not paying for the designs to be implemented.

Many students say they want more and better bike storage on campus.

College junior David Berger, a member of the cycling team, said that he does not ride his bike around campus for fear that it might be stolen.

"I don't ride it unless I have to go past 34th or 33rd Street," Berger said, adding that the the weatherproof lockers are a great idea but that he is not sure how much he would be willing to pay for access to them.

Students would not be the only people using the structures. More people in University City ride bikes than in anywhere in Pennsylvania, according to Executive Director Alex Doty of the Bicycle Coalition of Greater Philadelphia, and Fierro and Sabin say they are confident that the structures would be well-used.

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