Decatur Active Living’s Cheryl Burnette sends in this photo of one of the new bike racks installed in front of the Decatur Visitors Center along Clairemont Ave, “just in time for Bike Month”.

Spotted today on the Square was this band of merry gentlemen installing what appears to be new bike racks. A quick check with the city’s Amanda Thompson (yes, she belongs to each and every one of us) confirms. Sez Amanda:

“The bicycle rack installation is a project in partnership with Bike Decatur to install more bicycle parking on the Square. Four racks are being installed at the Decatur MARTA Station near Squash Blossom with two more located on East Court Square. Four racks have already been installed on East Ponce de Leon in front of the historic DeKalb County courthouse. A total of 10 bicycle racks are being installed through the Bike Decatur program.”

There may be reasonable objections to public/private partnerships in certain contexts but Decatur doesn’t seem to be one of them. Time and time again, it seems our tax dollars get stretched further when involving the passions of the community. Bike on!

After I noticed a lot of – what I called – “organic bike parking” in front of Farm Burger on West Ponce back in May 2010, the Marlay and its property owner were gracious enough to install a bike rack at the corner of their property. I excitedly deemed it the city’s first “crowd-sourced bike rack”.

Now I’ve walked by that rack many times in the past 8 months and am always cheerful when I see a bike chained to it.  But sometimes the organic bike parking continues around Farm Burger in spite of the rack, as Al captured in the pic above.

What’s the cause?  Is it a visibility thing?  If so, perhaps someone – they city? – could make off-street bike parking more obvious to cyclists by painting some sort of symbol on the sidewalk or street?  Or maybe organic bike parking will persist regardless of racks?  Will a sign post closer to a business entrance always get more use than a rack slightly further away?

Isn’t it beautiful?

OK, a little background.  Back in May of last year, I posted a picture of at least six different bicycles chained to light-posts and trees in front of Farm Burger on a Saturday afternoon.  The need for a bike rack in the area obvious and the pic led to a great conversation about city bike ordinances and how much we should rely on the city’s government to supply or require such things.

The owner of the neighboring Marlay property, Chadwick, quickly let us know that he was open to installing a bike rack on his property.  After being tipped off by commenters, I followed up with a second post about SOPO’s bike rack installation program, and DM readers continued to provide guidance on the most affordable and practical options for bike rack purchase and installation.

And now today, I’m happy to report that I just received this pic from Darren at The Marlay showing that the bike rack has been installed and is ready for use!  I’m not sure who paid for it, but we should certainly be appreciative to Chadwick and The Marlay folks for being receptive to installing a rack that should be a great resource for both The Marlay and its neighbors.

That’s community folks.  And that’s also a primitive sort of crowd-sourcing.  All it takes is a bunch of people with a diverse enough knowledge base and a willing property owner and you might just begin to accomplish some of the smaller things in your town that were once only possible as a result of the more traditional models of government.

Groovy.