Library Bike Rack Ground Broken

Catching up with Library director Nancy Hunt-Coffee last week, we learned that the new bike rack/corral intended for the library should be in place by the start of the school year. By broken ground we mean some tilled soil and wooden stakes to mark the new concrete pad.The location is just off Rexford Drive and about 30 feet from the library’s front door. It will serve both City Hall (though nobody rides to work, evidently) and the library. With ground broken, when can we expect to see the new racks?Earlier in the Spring we met with library and Public Works officials to press for action, a meeting that itself echoed earlier formal calls to upgrade the Civic Center’s two sorry racks. In this case, the city is not citing cost as the barrier: the Friends of the Library some time ago said they’d fund the racks. (Friends emerita Barbara Linder is a BB member, but the funding predated our arrival on the scene.) And we’re told that the racks are in the city’s possession.

So why the delay? We’re told that plants have to be moved but that Public Works is working on it. Still, it can’t come too soon, for seeing bikes hitched up in haphazard fashion to the existing wheel-bender rack makes us sad. Especially when the Santa Monica main library has doubled their racks overnight to accommodate about 40 bikes – and often they’re full.