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A Philadelphia cultural institution is the first in the city to add bicycle parking under a new program. WHYY’s Tom MacDonald talked to one official at the Academy of Natural Sciences who said that given the number of patrons who ride to the museum, putting out the new spaces was only… natural.

Photo by Flickr user Adam Pieniazek. Used under Creative Commons License.

Barbara Ciega of the Academy of Natural Sciences says they have added spaces for more than two dozen bicycles as part of the city’s Adopt-a-Bike-Rack program.

Ciega: “We get a lot of bicycle riders that come to the Academy. I joined the Academy a couple of years ago and during good weather we see bicycles tied up everywhere you could imagine. It just makes sense to put bike racks out front and accommodate as many cyclists as possible.”

The city pays for the racks and their installation, and the partners have to maintain them and keep them free of graffiti. Ciega says using a bike just makes sense to help the environment and with the city offering the racks for free they jumped at the chance to acquire them.

Ciega: “I happen to think seeing a bunch of bicycles in front of buildings is always pleasing. We did have some pretty grim looking planters. We just took them out to make room for the bike racks and it looks better than bikes tied to the poor city trees because [the trees] need all the help they can get.”

The Academy has seven racks — five in front and two on the side. It’s part of a city effort to install over 1400 racks citywide.

More information

Bicycle Coalition of Greater Philadelphia: Adopt-A-Rack Starts Off at Academy of Natural Sciences