Photo Taken from Enci's Cell Phone at Red Line Universal Station
As Metro struggles to make room for bikes on their trains, it seems the agency may have another bike issue to deal with:making their rail stations safe and convenient places to store bicycles.
This weekend, the Pasadena Star News reported on the sad trend of bicycles being stolen at Metro facilities, specifically Gold Line Stations, that lack the facilities to properly secure bicycles. The story has two arcs. One focuses on the story of a bike advocate who has had four bikes stolen from the Lake Avenue Gold Line Station in Pasadena during the past year, and a story on a four year quest to get bike facilities installed in the station that will end this January.
Unfortunately, the problem with a lack of bike facilities isn't confined to just theft. As the above picture shows, bikes chained to wave racks in areas away from regular foot traffic provide an easy target for vandals. Proper statistics for vandalism and theft at Metro stations isn't widely reliable because most people don't know where to report a problem. Any crime committed on Metro properly should be reported to the county, but most people, myself included until reading this article, would report a theft to the local municipality.
In addition to bike parking areas, Metro will install 300 more lockers county-wide and is examining the costs of having supervised bike storage rooms. From the sound of it, improved bike facilities can't come soon enough.
