BIKEPGH MESSAGE BOARD ARCHIVE

that is really awesome! i love ikea and i love this!

I was just telling Kayla, "I bet they pop up on CL soon."

First, that is pretty cool.

Second, I think I've been to about a half dozen different Ikea stores in various parts of the US, and none of them are located in places I'd want to bike to. Mostly right off the freeway in the midst of some giant retail parking hell. Maybe their EU stores are better in this respect?

Third, if Ikea was making bikes, that is exactly the bike I imagined they would make.

But it is the thought that counts, right? Hopefully it gets a fraction of those 12k people interested in biking and they eventually get a non-disposable bike to ride around.

i guess i was hoping for a better designed bike, not something that looks like a walmart bike from 2002

Aww man, just what we need, more junk bikes on CL...

+1 to erok's comment about the design. it's a little bit funny that they get it flat packed. ouch.

The Ikea store in Conshohocken, PA, outside Philadelphia, is located on a bike trail that connects to the Schuylkill River Trail. This means that cyclists are able to ride to the store to pick up a futon or that entertainment center they were looking for.

Cool! Do you ever spot people hauling their Ikea goods on trailers? Some advocates from Portland, OR gave a presentation here a few months ago and they mentioned group rides where lots of people show up with cargo bikes & bike trailers to help each other on moving day.

I was joking, Pseudacris. While the store is on the Cross County Trail, and that trail connects to the main rail-trail in and out of Philly, I've never seen anyone use a bike trailer or cargo bike to transport anything from Ikea. Some rides originate at the store parking lot, but that's it.

I have seen someone pull a drum set on a trailer in downtown Philadelphia.

The IKEA store in Robinson is only about 1/2 mile from the Montour trail, but 200 feet vertically, ha, ha!

And the township doesn't want to allow a connection to the mall area from the trail, afraid it will bring in the riff-raff.

edmonds59, why am I not surprised people opposed to trails trot out that old argument of 'undesireables' near their property? I wish they'd come up with something new.

wait...

I have credit cards, a full time job, disposable income, and no criminal record. I own a house and am up to date on all my taxes (income and property). I ride a bicycle, and want to travel on trails to different parts of the city and surrounding areas. While there I plan on spending some of my disposable income.

I'm undesireable? Hunh. Screw them.

Sorry, ejwme, didn't mean to set you off. Just recapped the arguments presented.

I've seen the people at the mall, so by "undesirable", I take it to mean "upper to middle class, middle income people with better than average education, concerned with a healthy lifestyle, who aren't prone to spending themselves into irrecoverable credit card debt".

why am I not surprised people opposed to trails trot out that old argument of 'undesireables' near their property? I wish they'd come up with something new.

Kind of OT but I lived in Amherst and then Northampton, Massachusetts for a long time. There was a plan to build a rail trail from the Amherst-Belchertown line all the way to Look Park in Northampton. And the trail exists today, the Norwattock Trail is very popular. But for years the town of Hadley which lies between Amherst and Northampton blocked the trail for reasons largely pertaining to fear college students, riff-raff and the like. But my favorite argument put forth was that the bike/ped traffic on the trail would "scare the dairy cows and reduce milk production." Oh yeah, that's a HUGE problem.

Eventually housing prices in Amherst got so high that younger people started buying houses on the Amherst side of Hadley and wrested control of town meeting from a few old line families and then the trail got approved.

hey, as long as it's not your arguement

it bugs me that it happens with my own personal neighbors too. Like I talk to them about trails and how it'd be fun and I could bike over and visit them more, and kids could get to the park safer, and it would really put us on the map in terms of attracting young people with jobs and families and make the place more livable, and they listen politely and when I'm done, they inevitably say...

"yes, but we can't have a trail to enjoy because then those people down in that trailor park would ruin it by coming up here, drinking and vandalizing, and _maybe worse_" (last part said with that knowing look). Because without a trail, they are encased in their bubble of a trailor park, with no other escape like a road or anything.

Makes me want to hold my tax money hostage while they hold my green spaces hostage.

Nearly every trail project in the greater Philadelphia area has been held up at one time or another by concern about 'undesireables.' Sad.

Funny how many of those same communities that once fought the trail(s) are now rejoicing at the economic benefits that the trails bring. Not saying they were opposed at the outset, but I love seeing the signs on the Montour Trail that say "rent here" as you head south from RIDC Park/Robinson. I love the signs in Boston (?) or West Newtown (?) that say "Grandma's sandwich shop, three doors that way."

Trails, and responsible trail use, can change the minds of people once opposed....it doesn't necesarily take a generational change to make that happen.

"undesireables" in Robinson are those people who don't own cars, but rely on the 28x to get to the mall to... oh. work. Well, them. We don't want any more of them "workers" poking around our homes^H^H^H^H^Hshopping malls^H^H^H^H^.. I mean -- poking around US. Wherever we are.

Um, back on the topic of Ikea: @dwillen, their EU stores aren't in much better locations, because they're big stores and need space. This means that they're almost always in the suburbs of cities. But at the one I used to go to in Berlin, there were a ton of signs directing you from the subway station to the Ikea, and, yes, I did see plenty of people with their bikes loaded down with Ikea goods. The first time my mom and I saw people transporting their Ikea stuff by bike it put big smiles on our faces.

In the 90's there plenty of people who closed down public stair casews. One of the perps told me that there was a council person you could call and say you thought the staircase was "unsafe" and they would shut it down right away.

tehre was a lovely one from Beechwood up to Shaw Avenue. I usually don't singletrack, but I'm tempted to tear down the fence on that right of way and make a trail on the the right-of-way through that guy's garden.

It would be politcally unfeasible to stop road building with this excuse, even though there are reckless drivers, distracted drivers, drunk drivers and other dangerous criminals on all the roads they build.

@ ther historian The Ikea store in Conshohocken, PA, outside Philadelphia, is located on a bike trail

Check out the "Best pictures when you google image search bicycle + _____________" thread. A pic from yesterday.

http://bike-pgh.org/bbpress/topic/best-pictures-when-you-google-image-search-bicycle-_/page/3#post-57008

There is no reason picking up stuff from Ikea by bike should be a joke.

That being said, the Robinson "Towne Center" doesn't even have sidewalks. It is an abomination from the beginning. I think it was conceived by Robert Barnwell Rhett IV.

Mick, I agree with you. However, the Philadelphia suburbs are not Portland. I didn't want posters to think cargo bikes were plentiful out here.

The thing that always bugged me about RTC was I couldn't tell what stores were where - like if I park my car in one spot, I can't see where everything is. Some stuff is at the mall, some stuff is on top of the hill, some stuff is across the highway. All spread out, with nothing in between (not even a tree), so it's _like_ it should be easy to navigate, and yet totally impossible. Just try to give someone directions to a specific store there without using the "it's near X" (where X is a bigger store). Only works for Ikea and the mall (which I had to describe as "behind Ikea" once, so maybe not even that)

I do love the fact that at Ikea, I can buy scissors. No clamshell, no cardboard, no packaging. Just scissors. Same with most of their stuff. I really like their packaging aversion.

When I first moved to Pittsburgh I got a hotel at RTC to stay in while looking for apartments. I had no idea what I had gotten myself into and just getting to the hotel I got lost for about an hour. My introduction to Pittsburgh was me driving and crying and calling the hotel for directions (which of course they were completely unable to do). Once I got to the hotel I was basically afraid to leave, fearing that I'd never find my way back again.

Wow, and you made it through anyway! I'm warming up to almost everywhere in the area, but Moon will never be on my list of Awesome Pittsburgh Neighborhoods.

I was driving out to Beaver County to visit my mother, and I needed something that I was pretty sure I could get at one of the stores at the mall. So, with zero foresight, I took the RTC exit and (eventually) found the store. After looking (unsuccessfully) for the item I was seeking, it was time to get back on the road toward mom's, so I found my car and realized I had *no* idea how to get back on the parkway going West. I drove around and around and eventually took a shot at it. Ended up on the wrong road (or maybe the right one but in the wrong direction) and attempts to exit in the hopes of getting back on in the other direction just put me on other highway-type-roads that were completely foreign to me. I kept trying to find my way out of the mess and kept digging myself in deeper. Added an hour to my trip. The really frustrating thing is that I grew up out there, and I used to know all the little roads around where the mall is now. But they're not there anymore, or at least the places where they used to emerge from the woods aren't there anymore and my familiarity has been completely obliterated. I'm not planning on taking another shot at it.

@Tabby, I had a similar experience during my move to Pittsburgh. I kept winding up driving past this row of decaying hulks of old steel mills looking up at roads 100 yards above me thinking how do I get up to that bridge? And wishing I had never left Boston but unwilling to face the 12-hour drive back.

Slight threadjack here, 'cause I know several people here are interested in urban planning & architecture. A very interesting read is "Learning from Las Vegas."

Last I was at Ikea, they didn't have any bike racks.

bikefind- your story gives me the shivers

ejwme- it all worked out. I rented the first place I went to see- a darling, affordable little house right near the Millvale Riverfront TRAIL

lyle- lol, glad you can relate and that you (evidently) were able to work it out too

I'm undesireable? Hunh. Screw them.

AYHSMB.

"All You Haters Stroke My Beard?"

@ejwme I'm undesireable? Hunh. Screw them.

That might change their assessment of your desirability quickly.