CITY OF MARGATE/Bike racks that hold up to 9 bicycles will be installed in Margate business districts.
By NANETTE LoBIONDO GALLOWAY
MARGATE – To encourage residents and visitors to use their bicycles instead of vehicles to get around town, the city has purchased and will soon install a dozen new bike racks in the city’s business districts.
The bike racks were recommended by the Citizens Advisory Committee as a way to make traffic safer, eliminate parking issues, and encourage residents to get some exercise while they are shopping or visiting eateries around town, Advisory Committee Chairman Rich Tolson said in a video posted on the city's social media page.
Two of the non-decorative bike racks, which are large enough to lock up to nine bicycles, have been installed in the Ventnor Avenue business district at Decatur and Frontenac avenues.
According to Public Works Supervisor Pat Power, 10 more racks will likely be delivered this week.
“We already had two, but we ordered 10 more,” he said Monday morning.
The locations that will receive bicycle racks next are near Gilcrest Restaurant at Adams and Atlantic avenues, near Robert’s Place at Essex and Atlantic avenues, at Margate Towers high rise condominium, and at locations along Amherst Avenue in the Marina District, he said.
The bike racks are much less expensive than the 208 decorative ones that took five years to procure and install through a federal grant cooperatively awarded to Ventnor and Margate.
Ventnor and Margate were jointly awarded the $275,000 federal Bicycle Infrastructure Grant funded through the Federal Highway Administration and Federal Transit Administration’s $1.9 million allocation to the South Jersey Transportation Planning Organization for fiscal year 2017. After five years of wrangling and rebidding, the racks were finally installed in 2021.
The old-fashioned bike racks were purchased at a cost of $215 each, Power said.
“If they are delivered tomorrow as expected, we will install four or five of them this week,” he said.
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