Talking Head David Byrne designed some awesome bike racks for the NYC Department of Transportation. Amazingly, the DOT swiftly gave him the green light to turn his sketches into reality.
Gothamist has a great photo gallery of all of the racks installed so far.
My home town used something like this — until people complained that there were never any places to lock bikes up. Combining the stupidity of the masses, and an already inefficient design resulted in cases where 4 bikes would be locked onto the ‘bike rack’ pictured above, and the downtown area running out of bike rack space. The racks were too damn inefficient, and even with the added rack locations (4 per intersection, versus 1 per intersection) there were no longer enough space, and the papers filled with bikers with nothing better to do than complain, and other people simply complaining about the bikes scattered all over the area.
Eventually they moved back to more traditional racks, allowing a few dozen or so bikes to easily be locked up in the same amount of space.
It was a neat experiment, and it did make the area look a little better — until all the bikers started locking their bikes to parking meters, light posts, and the fences surrounding street-side dining areas due to lack of racks.
More power to this guy.
How is this a prank, Urban Prankster?
a:
I believe this falls under the category of “other creative endeavors.” Neat! I especially like (as you read if you look at the photo gallery) that they’re themed based on what neighborhood they’re in (ie, dollar sign on Wall Street.)
I love when famous cool people get invited to do things just because they are cool and famous, while people with real talent work in obscurity. Go famous cool people!