Decorative bike racks depict East City landmarks
A new series of decorative bike racks have been installed along Hunter St. E. in East City.
They have metal cut-outs depicting buildings in East City such as the Liftlock, Westclox, the Quaker plant and the Hunter Street bridge.
“They just look absolutely beautiful,” said Coun. Keith Riel, Ashburnham Ward councillor and board member of the Village BIA.
Riel said the bike racks were installed after he spoke to Susan Sauvé, the city’s transportation
demand management planner, about repairing some bollards along the street.
He also asked her about bike racks – and he requested the decorative ones, preferably featuring East City landmarks.
Last week those bollard repairs were done – and the bike racks were installed, too.
They are the latest in a series of such bike racks to appear in Peterborough: there are a few outside City Hall as well as on Water St. near Euphoria Wellness Spa.
Those bike racks were all installed last fall.
At that time, Sauvé told The Examiner they were locally designed and made at City Welding Works on Perry St.
She said the firm — which does a lot of work for the city — heard that council was interested in buying some decorative bike racks.
So they set to work designing some and brought the prototypes in to City Hall to show staff.
Sauvé said last year that a plain U-rack costs $175, plus $80 for the art.
About two years ago, council voted to have staff consider ordering decorative bike racks, benches and manhole covers rather than the standard ones.
The idea came from Coun. Dean Pappas, who said he thought it was a great idea to add this kind of whimsy to the city.
“A bike rack doesn’t have to be a utilitarian piece of steel — they can be decorative,” Pappas said at the time.
This week, Riel said he’s happy to have the new decorative bike racks on Hunter St. E.
“They dress up the downtown of East City a bit.”