In his efforts to penalize bicycle riders who lock their bikes to city property, City Councilman Chris Hilbert reveals that he is not a friend of Richmond’s bike riders, and is probably a person who has never even ridden a bicycle.

He obviously doesn’t realize what a great place Richmond is for bike riding, and obviously has no clue how important it is for bike commuters to have convenient and secure structures to lock their rides to. Any City Council member who wants to limit places where bikes can be parked is unfair to residents who commute by bicycle, and directly contradicts the mayor’s goals in support of bike commuting in Richmond.

If Mr. Hilbert seriously wants to have Richmond’s police start ticketing bicycles that are locked to city property, then he had better be planning for Richmond to provide official and legal bike parking places for bikes to be locked to in every block in the city — along with providing funding for them, and making sure they’re installed before any bike parking restrictions are enforced.

If Richmond’s leaders really want Richmond to be a bike-friendly city, they obviously have a lot of work and education ahead of them. City Council members need to wake up, and lose their negative attitudes about this healthy, traffic-mitigating activity that could be a great benefit to the city.

William Pickett
Richmond