I have to go into the Pitt Parking office every semester to hand over my $40 and renew my bike locker rental. Every time I've gone in there they give me this song and dance about how there aren't any lockers available, yadda yadda.. I explain I ALREADY have one, and just want to renew it. Then all is well, they take my money and I'm on my way. I ride pretty much every day, but I've only seen two guys in my cluster of 20 something lockers.
The locker right next to mine was open one evening, filled with boxes, balls, a stereo, some chips, juice boxes, etc. After a moment of "wtf?" some girl ran over and started to lock it up. I told her "interesting bike you have there" and she gave me a look and said "its a 4-square locker!". Alright, whatever. I figured one locker out of 20 something being used for non-bike activities wasn't a big deal.
This week, about half of the lockers are wide open when I roll up in the morning. Someone jacked a bunch of bikes? Nope! These lockers are being used to store maintenance crap. Gloves, hoses, buckets, paint, whatever. Half the lockers are used for this stuff. If they need a place to store their junk, why don't they budget out some money for a shed? Or haul it off to remote storage the 51 weeks out of they year they don't need it. I don't know if it is temporary, or what? Who funded these lockers? I hate to think my $40 a semester is subsidizing an overpriced storage shed. What upsets me even more is knowing other cyclists go in there asking to rent a locker, and are turned away, when only few buckets is all that stands in their way.
I forwarded this to the person at Pitt that I thought might be responsible for the bike locker program. It was the right person. This is the response I got back:
< Thank you for bringing this to my attention.>> Hopefully, we'll see those freed up for bicycles soon. Slightly off topic, but I wonder if the University has been paying itself rent on those units?
Swalfoort,
Thanks for forwarding my gripes along. Glad to know my bike wont be amongst the flammable liquids for long!
When I initially rented a locker, I was told I got the last one, and every time I've been in there they tell me "oh good thing you renewing, we're all sold out!" or something to that effect. If they aren't at full capacity, what is with creating all the false scarcity? I kind of got the feeling that if I didn't renew it one semester, it wouldn't be there the next.
RE: paying itself, I doubt it. I bet some maintenance guy has a master key and just takes whatever ones are empty so he doesn't have to haul all that junk to wherever its proper place is.
kudos to Swalfoort for passing the info on! That's just ridiculous.
It seems the University is very good with attending to problems. I also received a prompt reply to a concern I had with a Pitt shuttle driver last week.
