Fairfax Regional Library--second report
Photo by flickr user Robert of Fairfax
It's exam time, so I cycled down to the Fairfax City Regional Library to do a bit of studying far away from my usual haunt. I've blogged about this before.
In general, I really like the library. Inside, it's a bright, airy space, and generally quieter than the law library.
There's a problem, though. At the old library site, there was an awful lot more bicycle parking. The dilapidated old bike rack had space for about a dozen bicycles, with room for more on nearby railings.
The new library, though, beautiful as it is, only has one Sheffield stand in a tight corner of its facade. That's room for two bikes.
I'm annoyed. I would have thought that there might have been a little more foresight on the part of the library architect. But I suppose the two-storey underground parking garage got a lot more attention than the bicycle racks.
There's really a lot of potential to turn central Fairfax into a very walkable, cyclable space. The densification of the town center was supposed to encourage this type of development. But how are you going to encourage people out of their cars and onto their bicycles if you don't even provide anywhere for them to lock up their bikes?