You know the valet bike parking that is ubiquitous at Alameda events like the Art & Wine Faire and Earth Day? That you’ve grown to expect at local events? Bike Walk Alameda brought the idea of valet bike parking (vpb) to Alameda from San Francisco. Our first event was Earth Day at the Alameda Hornet in April 2000. The first bike we parked belonged to then-Mayor Ralph Appezzato. By 2012, we had parked over 11,000 bikes with hundreds of volunteer hours.
We spent the time creating vbp because we knew it would encourage more people to ride bikes and create a safe space where they could leave their bikes. Early on, we made sure “monitored bike parking” was included in Alameda events into the future. Now, even though, BWA doesn’t do vbp, it lives on because various organizations create their own or contract out to professionals to do it.
One complement came our way this week with a request for a high-res version of our old vip logo that Dan Wood made back in for the very first Earth Day event. It turns out its still being used out there in Kansas City, Missouri.