Thursday Commuteblogging: Bike Rack edition

Another busy week at work for me, and thank heavens for my bicycle. Bicycle commuting makes it easier to go to work and more fun to come home at the end of a long day. I have the option to use the Metro subway and walk a mile, but I almost always ride. I have to be injured, recovering from a tough brevet, or the streets have to be icy for me to take the subway.

I tend to leave the car parked during the week and pick up groceries by bike at the Arlington Whole Foods in Clarendon, unless I’m getting together with MG in the district. The Whole Foods on P Street NW in D.C. is fairly bike-friendly, with lots of rack space on the sidewalk outside the storefront. We see some neat bikes there.

Whole Foods P Street rack

But the Arlington Whole Foods is another story. They have a tiny little rack tucked into a corner of the parking lot that is usable for maybe three bikes and is largely ignored. Everybody who rides locks up to something else in front of the store. Whole Foods makes that difficult, too, because they put so much seasonal merchandise outside the store.

A very sad bike rack

I asked one of the parking lot employees (that’s right, they pay people to direct drivers to available parking spaces!) about it and he said he’s a cyclist and he’s been working on the store to move the rack somewhere better. Still, he said moving the rack “is really political.”

Bikes not welcome

I hope Whole Foods will take the money it is not spending on plastic bags anymore and use it on a bigger, properly located rack. It says something about a company that sells the green lifestyle that it still cares more about SUVs than bicycles.

Other riders have seen Whole Foods give cyclist-shoppers (also known as customers) second-class treatment. See the Cyclofiend blog for his experience.

Here’s an idea: why not give cyclists a couple of those car spaces? Ha ha ha ha! Good one, huh? No, seriously. I mean it.