By Laurel Walker of the Journal Sentinel
Waukesha - The city's Board of Public Works has gotten behind the idea of artistic bicycle racks in the downtown, unanimously voting conceptual approval of the idea.
The Waukesha Bicycle Alliance has been promoting the project since last summer and is working on ways to raise funds and create a design competition.
Public Works Director Fred Abadi said the board unanimously endorsed the idea last week and now wants to review specific locations.
"They need to identify where they want to have them, and we need to coordinate with business owners," he said. The racks can't be an obstruction to pedestrians or wheelchairs, he said.
Artistic bike racks have added whimsy to streetscapes in many other cities. Alliance organizers have said the project not only would solve the lack of bike racks downtown - most are located in the Frame Park area - but they would also make the downtown a more attractive destination..
About Laurel Walker
Laurel Walker covered local, school and county government for 20 years -- the last half of that at the Milwaukee Journal and Milwaukee Journal Sentinel -- before she was named Waukesha County columnist in 1997. Today she writes about the people, places and events around metropolitan Milwaukee with a broad suburban focus.
She was the youngest of nine children raised on a central Wisconsin farm before leaving the nest for journalism studies at the University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire and a masters degree at the University of Oregon.
She has spent the last half of her life in Waukesha County, where she and her husband raised two sons. Though she has a fondness for life in Waukesha, she eagerly partakes in the culture of the big city to the east and the recreation of the forests to the west. With sons in the arts, she has a special fondness for symphonic music concerts and art museums. She finds peace in a good book at a Northwoods getaway weekend, adventure in family visits to the east and west coasts, and satisfaction in a column well-written that reaches readers.
