City of Charleston Installing Additional Bicycle Parking Along King Street
September 5, 2014
CHARLESTON, SC – During the next few weeks, the City of Charleston will be installing additional bike parking on King Street between Calhoun Street and Market Street. The first set of new bike racks is being installed this week at the intersection of King Street and Hasell Street and will contain sixteen bicycle parking spaces. Subsequent locations will include a bike corral at King Street and Liberty Street, a bike corral at King Street and George Street and a bike corral at King Street and Burns Lane.
Other bike racks will be placed on the sidewalks along King Street where space allows for safe pedestrian passage. In all, seventy new public bike parking spaces will be installed adding to the existing fifty spaces that already installed in the middle King Street area.
Over the past several years, the City has been installing public bicycle parking in the commercial areas of the peninsula; especially on and near King Street. The City recently installed over one hundred bike parking spaces in the upper King Street area between Spring Street and Calhoun Street and many other racks all over the City.
A solution to the unique spatial challenges on the peninsula led the City to install the state’s first in-street bike corral in 2012. Since then, the City has installed seven in-street corrals throughout the community and will be adding several more with the latest round of installations. Bike corrals and other bike parking structures are an efficient way to provide parking access in tight areas.
Mayor Joseph P. Riley, Jr. said, “As the growth trend in the Charleston community increases, the City’s goal is to support bicycling among the entire network of transportation options.” He continued, saying that adding to the existing 3,100 public bike parking spaces on the peninsula and hundreds more all over the City will be part of the City’s overall effort to provide safe and convenient access to all parts of the City for cyclists. Adding more paths, bike lanes and safe bicycle streets will go hand-in-hand with the additional parking infrastructure.
To assist bicyclists in easily identifying safe and convenient bike parking in the community, the City provides an interactive, online bike map that shows all bicycle parking, bike paths, bike lanes, good biking streets and bike services (such as bike shops and rental locations) in the City of Charleston. The map can be accessed at http://gis.charleston-sc.gov/interactive/bike.
