BICYCLE PROBLEM.

Ashburton Guardian, Volume 58, Issue 195, 31 May 1938, Page 4

BICYCLE PROBLEM.

PARKING IN ASHBURTON.

DIFFICULTIES NEED CLEANING

There is no law in Ashburton regarding the parking of bicycles in the streets, so that they may be placed wherever the owners please, but if the bicycles are parked in such a way that they form an obstruction the owners are liable to prosecution. The parking of bicycles in the business area in Ashburton is becoming a big problem, not from the Borough Council point of view, because it can prosecute if bicycles take up too much room on streets or paths; but from the viewpoint of the pedestrian and the motorist.

Of late, a number of business houses have placed bicycle stands in front or their shops and these are largely availed of by owners of bicycles, often to the detriment of people walking on the paths and motorists wishing to stop their cars at the kerb at those particular places. Some owners of bicycles are notoriously careless in the placing of their machines when they enter a shop and it is a common thing to see a person place a bicycle on the outside of two or three others already placed against a verandah post rather than go on to: the next- one, which is clear. This.only tends to make the confusion worse.

In the last week or two several wheels of bicycles left on the outer side of the parking stands in East Street have been buckled by being run over bv motor cars pulling into the edge of the stieet so as to be inside the dotted white line when they come to a standstill. Much of the trouble lies in the fact that the stands are erected on the inside of the channels. This means that bicycles parked on that side have to be placed either in the water (where the spokes of the wheels act as a strainer, collecting rubbish) or on the road edge, and most bicycles are parked in the latter manner. They are therefore on an angle and easily slip down, -when they lie in the path of parking cars. An astonishing number of bicycles are parked against verandah posts and building fronts in Ashburton, and the space allowed for pedestrians is cutdown b.y a considerable amount. It has been suggested that special parking stands should be built under the. trees in East Street, so keeping the east side of the street clear, while another idea mentioned is the adoption of the scheme employed in' Palmerston North and Wellington, where wooden slats are fastened to the ground in a horizontal position, the wheels of bicycles being run between them for parking purposes. Circumstances in Ashburton recently have brought the problem more than ever before the public, and it has been stated that the Borough Council might take the question in hand before it becomes worse.