Downtown Austin Alliance Looking For Nice Racks

The Downtown Austin Alliance (DAA) is looking for Austin-area artists to design sculptures that can double as bicycle racks on Congress Ave. downtown. The Alliance's request for proposals (pdf) calls for artists to create eye-catching public art bicyclists can lock their rides to, and offers a $10,000 grant to those whose designs are approved. "We want bike racks that aren't just the typical curved pipe," Alliance Marketing and Communications Director Lucy LaBorde said. Similar programs have been implemented in Louisville, Kentucky, and recently in New York, where David Byrne designed some of the racks.

The DAA's program is only open to artists living within 100 miles of Austin. Submissions are due Sept. 24; winning entries will be selected about a month later, and the DAA hopes to have the sculptures up at locations on the 400, 600, and (tentatively) 800 blocks of Congress Ave. by May 2009. LaBorde said judges will be looking for high aesthetic value, functionality, safety, and a low degree of maintenance. An artist's information session will be held at Arthouse, at 200 Congress Ave., on Sept. 4 from 7 to 8 p.m.

LaBorde said she hopes the three new bike rack sculptures will only be the beginning. "Eventually we hope to have dozens all over downtown and then all over the city," she said. "We'll start on Congress and then radiate out." She also hoped the racks would complement the planned Lance Armstrong Bikeway and Capital MetroRail station at the Convention Center as ways of encouraging non-automobile transportation downtown. The DAA is also looking for input on the project from bicyclists, especially to help them with a potential problem: making sure people know the sculptures are actually bike racks. "We're going to install plaques at the base of the sculptures that say 'bike rack' and take old junk bikes, paint them, and hook them up to the racks when they're unveiled," LaBorde said. "But mainly we want to get the word out and let people know it's OK to lock your bike to the sculptures. We have such a strong community of artists here. We expect the bike racks here in Austin to be even better than the ones in New York."

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By jndevereux in News on August 22, 2008 10:05 AM 0 Comments

Comments [rss]

SevCostanza

Inspiration came from the program in Louisville.

http://www.ldmd.org/streetscape/bikeracks.aspx

It's better than the one's I've seen in NY and hope their programs looks more like the Louisville one instead.

ducknutz

For $30,000 they could put a sign at the airport that says: "Welcome to Austin! No vacancies."

austinmaverick

DAA, Please, Please, Please find a better use for 30 THOUSAND dollars than 3 bike racks.

If you want to beautify downtown, how bout putting that money towards feeding the homeless, cleaning up all the urine, enforcing drug laws?

If you want to promote bicycle commuting, how about buying $30k of real bike racks and putting them throughout downtown and disseminating some pro-bicycle commuting information?

Please tell me Austinites aren't so vain as to blow thirty thousand dollars on something so Austin can look more like New York.

Grape Ape

Maybe they can make them out of a reflective blue colored material that will illuminate the sky with a blue glow when the lights from cars reflect...oh wait, we already tried that for the same price.

LoudMouth

Shit. Give me some rebar and a torch and a $100 and I'll come up with some goddamn artistic looking bike racks. Just don't give me $10,000 for them because then I'd feel guilty about robbing all you gullible fools.

LoudMouth

If the best NYC can come up with is some stupid-looking stick figures designed by a musician that can't hold more than two bikes a piece, what the hell do you think Austin artists are going to come up with?

And WTF are they spending $10,000 a piece on Fucking Bike Racks when the library, low income housing, and schools are in shambles?