This bike rack allegedly exists, but we didn’t see it.

UPDATE: Since durhambikeracks.com does have a listing for this location, I decided to go back after work today to take another look. I walked around the plaza for a little bit and lo and behold, BIKE RACK! It was hidden away in an alleyway between two stores and well-concealed behind a couple rows of hedges. Not exactly easy to find, but it’s there. So I hereby recant everything I said below about the absence of said bike rack. However, I think the sentiments in the last paragraph still hold true — we still have a long way to go before we have the infrastructure in place to make it convenient for people to use alternative modes of transportation. Oh, that and the fact that biking to Adam & Eve is hilarious.

There’s a grocery store about a 20-minute bike ride from our house. It’s in a plaza that sits on the trail where we bike several times a week, and we usually ride out to the edge of the plaza and then turn around. I keep wanting to ride to that grocery store on the weekends. I can get my grocery shopping done, get in my workout in the process, and do a teensy bit to help the planet by using a bike for at least one of my regular errands. I even went online last night to look for a bike basket for holding groceries.

There’s just one problem: There is no bike rack in front of the grocery store or really anywhere near it. The only time my wife and I rode out to the store, I had to stand outside and guard our bikes while she went in to pick up a couple items. That’s just not going to work if we’re to do this on a regular basis. We drove around the plaza yesterday evening trying to find a bike rack and came up empty, even though according to durhambikeracks.com, there is one (did we just miss it? Anybody know?). It really is surprising, considering this is a busy shopping center right off a major bike trail. It sits in front of a big apartment complex, where I can see people’s bikes sitting in their balconies. Yet, no bike racks in the plaza. Not in front of the grocery store. Not in front of the Starbucks. Not in front of any of the restaurants.

Ironically, we did see one bike rack on the distant fringes of the plaza property — in front of an Adam & Eve. So if I wanted to ride my bike to get some groceries, I would have to ride to a sex-toy emporium (“No, really, I’m just here to pick up some spicy Italian sausage for dinner …”). Who would’ve thought that living an Al Gore-approved lifestyle would be so naughty and titillating.

This case just underscores how far your typical American town is from being ready for its residents to leave their cars at home and use greener means of transportation. Whether it be the insufficient number of bus routes or the dearth of sidewalks and bike lanes, the infrastructure just isn’t there yet to make alternative means of transportation practical or convenient for people. Until that changes, you’re going to have a hard time convincing people to give up their cars. I mean, look at my example above. You undertake the costly project of building a major bike trail that conveniently goes by a shopping center, yet you neglect to do the much easier and cheaper thing — putting a bike rack in the shopping center — to make that trail useful as an alternative means of transportation. Without a bike rack, the trail will always only serve a recreational purpose. Lots of people will bike on it every day, but when it comes time for them to get groceries, most of them will still climb into their cars even if they, like me, want to bike there instead. The same holds true for making people walk a mile to get to the nearest bus stop or spend 45 minutes on public transit just to accomplish regular daily tasks.