City of Tacoma Launches Its Bicycle Fleet
The City of Tacoma launched its fleet bicycle program with a little show-n-tell at City Hall this morning. The four Trek Allant bicycles look great with their racks, baskets, bike bells, and comfortable seats. They are available to City employees during the regular work day as a means to get to nearby meetings or simply for a quick ride.
The bicycles were purchased from Bike Tech on South Tacoma Way using funds available via a WSDOT grant.
We look forward to seeing more bikes in downtown Tacoma.
Filed under: General
15 comments
M Mike October 13, 2009
Nice! Don’t forget to lock ‘em up, kiddies.
L Lynn Kaster October 13, 2009
Way to go Tacoma. You rock.
A Ashley October 13, 2009
This is an awesome program – how likely is it that they’ll extend it to something like ZipCar. I’d ride a ZipBike…
D Douglas Tooley October 13, 2009
Great idea, innovative yet also prudent – not to mention healthy!
E Elliot October 13, 2009
Sweet, just in time for biking season!
T Tacoma1 October 13, 2009
I wanna see both mayoral candidates riding one before I cast my vote!
A alamo city expat October 13, 2009
Do they have names? Like Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter
or Boreas, Auster, Eurus, Zephyr
or Bob, Carol, Ted, Alice
or Dorothy, Scarecrow, Tin Man, Cowardly Lion?
T Tacoma (A)roma October 13, 2009
Very cool. However, I hope no city employees (or anybody else) plans to ride on that deathtrap of a bike lane going up the hill.
K Kooper October 14, 2009
It won’t be long before these bikes are stolen or broken.
L Liz Kaster October 14, 2009
They are named Sophia, Hugo, Victor and Isabel.
N narndt October 14, 2009
@Tacoma (A)roma
Are we talking 30th? If so, then I disagree. My vote is available to any candidate that can successfully climb 30th on a bicycle w/o stopping. Who is the fittest candidate in Tacoma?
J jamie from thriceallamerican October 14, 2009
@narndt I think Tacoma (A)roma was actually talking about the opposite-traffic bike lane on St. Helens immediately in front of the Municipal Building, where our traffic planners strong-armed the council into making what used to be a great biking route one-way in the opposite direction. (We can talk about bicycle- and pedestrian-oriented planning in Tacoma all day, but ultimately what needs to happen is a change in some fundamental beliefs our our traffic engineers who seem to favor moving large volumes of traffic through our neighborhoods as quickly as possible.)
However, the N 30th idea is killer. I guess we could cut them a break and let them use N 29th instead if we wanted to take the “cars zooming past” aspect of the exercise out of the picture and just concentrate on sheer hill climbing endurance….
N narndt October 14, 2009
@jamie Oh goodness! I completely overlooked the fact that the new bike lane heads into car traffic. Shoot, I guess I just drive around downtown so little that it just didn’t click. I rode over to check it out right after it was painted when the road was closed and thought “mmm..shiny..awesome.” That’s actually NOT AWESOME!
I agree, fundamental change is completely necessary. But you’ve got to hand it to them, this “bike vs car” opposing lane style w/o any type of buffer is pretty trailblazing.
Then 29th Street it is! We’ll even out the competition by using the new fleet bikes, just in case Strickland’s got a carbon fiber rig we don’t know about.
T Tacoma (A)roma October 14, 2009
Yeah I’m talking about the one on St Helens. I used to take that route home, and was kinda bummed that it was turned into a 1 way street. I take Broadway now, but every now and then I wonder if I could cheat death and use the bike lane. So far I haven’t done it.
D dolly varden October 14, 2009
I actually like that uphill bike lane on St. Helens, and ride up it a few times a week. Or at least the lower 90% of it … I usually get over on the sidewalk before Market St., where a car could totally nail you at the intersection of Market and St. Helens. That’s some serious bad design, and probably a liability for the city.