Santa Monica Celebrates Opening of Bike Corrals

(Do you crave more Santa Monica coverage?  If so, join us tomorrow at The Library Alehouse where we'll be raising funds and raffling off cool prizes.)

This Saturday, Santa Monica Spoke gave the three new Main Street Bike Corrals the opening they deserved. If the city wasn't going to program a ribbon cutting ceremony, that doesn't mean that a ceremony won't be had, or a ribbon won't be cut.

Between the recently launched Bike Center, the largest bike parking facility in the country, and the trio of corrals, Santa Monica is becoming the bike parking capital of Southern California.  To celebrate, a couple dozen bike advocates biked from Bike Center to Peet's Coffee, home to one of the corrals in an event organized by Santa Monica Spoke and Richard McKinnon of the City Planning Commission and.  There, there were joined by  Mayor Richard Bloom to cut a ribbon and make Saturday's celebration the most official un-official opening in history.

“We at Santa Monica Spoke have strongly advocated the importance of abundant, convenient and safe parking for bicycles.  Good bike parking is an essential feature of a bikeable urban landscape and a crucial component in encouraging and enabling people to ride. It’s an important and valuable investment for cities to make.” Cynthia Rose said to the crowd.

A  bike corral is created when a city removes a car parking space and replaces it with a series of bike-parking spaces.  In Santa Monica, the corrals on the east side of Main Street have seven bike racks with space for fourteen bicycles and the one on the west side has four racks for eight bicycles.

For more coverage of Saturday's ceremony, visit SM Spoke or Santa Monica Beat.  For more pictures, click on after the jump.