If your attention's been drawn to the monochrome day-glow bicycles chained up along Main Street, Social Street and Front Street, RiverzEdge's project to draw attention to the city's bike racks is working.
Each bike, stripped-down old specimens painted bright colors to catch the eye, is chained to one of the city's current six bike racks. There are three on Main Street, two on Social Street and one on Front Street, said Brad Fesmire, program director at Riverz Edge Arts Project.
"We want to get people actually using those bike racks," Fesmire said.
But, said Town Planner Jennifer Siciliano, "A lot of people don't know they're bike racks."
So RiverzEdge teamed up with Mike Debroisse at the DPW's engineering and solid waste division to mark the points where a person can chain up their bike by doing so with their own brightly colored two-wheelers, Fesmire said. Debroisse has won a grant to pay for the racks, which cost about $200 a piece, Fesmire said.
There were 10 bike racks in the city about three years ago, Fesmire said, but theft and damage took out four of them. Fesmire said they've got four new ones that have just arrived they'll soon install, and there are two recovered from a recent theft they're refurbishing.
Within the next two weeks, Fesmire said, there will be 12 bike racks available for citizens to use.
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