As reported in The Nest’s article “The double wheel dilemma: Brentwood bikers at an all-time high” published this past October, at the start of this school year, Brentwood High School and Middle School had found themselves with a problem, albeit a good one.
The schools simply had too many bikers. Initially, this sounded like a great thing, but it also posed an issue of space. At the start of the school year, the schools had three bike racks, totaling 72 spaces, but about half were unusable due to the thinness of the gaps. Bikes were left on the ground unlocked, and as a result, several were stolen.
Since the publication of the article, The Nest is happy to report that the BHS Administration has added another bike rack, making available spots jump from 72 to 96. Although this is excellent news for all bike riders without proper spaces, both The Nest and the BHS Administration agree that this is just a temporary solution—but why?
Well, once the harsh weather hit, the number of bikers started to decrease. This winter brought a lot of rain, snow, and sleet, meaning that there were fewer people wanting to use their bikes. The ones who did bring bikes faced possible damage from the elements unprotected without a roof or solid ground to be parked on. It was obvious there were further steps to be taken such as a new location or even a covered area.
In a meeting with Dr. Johnson and Dr. Wehner, The Nest discussed further steps of this project. “The individual that we would really want to recruit to be on our team is Andy Hartnett,” Dr. Johnson said. “He’s really familiar with our facilities and grounds, and he would give us a better idea of what local officials we should outsource.”
It was clear that a meeting with Mr. Hartnett, the district’s Director of Facilities and Grounds, was crucial to this project. Mr. Hartnett was the person responsible for giving the school a new bike rack, and he had made it very clear that he cared a lot about this project and that he thought the new surplus of bike riders was a great thing.
After a meeting with Mr. Hartnett, a possible new location is being looked into: the alleyway to the left of the middle school entrance. It’s right by the middle school entrance, which is convenient for the middle schoolers who take up the majority of the bike-riding population at the school. It’s also out of sight from the general public, which would help with safety, and it could also be easily covered. This place seems like it has great potential to be a good spot, but it is still being verified and looked into.
There were a lot of great ideas discussed during the meeting in regards to improving our biking environment, including one idea The Nest hadn’t even considered: improving bike etiquette.
One of the initial issues with the bike racks was that people weren’t locking their bikes properly or didn’t know how to lock them. There also was the issue of parking bikes so that more bikes could fit on the racks. With bike etiquette in mind, here at The Nest, we took it upon ourselves to create a video on how to store and ride your bikes in the right and safe way. Enjoy!
Editor’s note: As a big bike rider myself, this is a project that I care a lot about, and I am so glad to hear that so many people in Brentwood care about it, too. Making our school more bike accessible is good not only for the students but also for the city. It actively encourages the children of our community to make eco-friendly decisions, as well as lowering the amount of vehicular traffic the school has to deal with.
I’m so glad we have such a good team to be working on this project, and I’m very excited to be a part of it. These changes are big, so it might take a few months to start seeing these improvements, but slowly and surely, Brentwood is going to turn into a role model for other schools when it comes to our bike awareness.
