BikeBedford.org > Bedford Friends of the Minuteman Bikeway, Inc > Bicycle Valet Parking

Bicycle Valet Parking is a service provided to encourage people to cycle to a destination (rather than drive a car). Members of the Bedford Friends of the Minuteman Bikeway have been providing bicycle valet parking at the Bedford Day celebration in September and at the Bedford Fourth of July Strawberry Festival for several years. People attending these events have parked bikes, child trailers, strollers, wagons, scooters, skateboards, and other things.

The logistics of providing bicycle valet parking for a daytime event are fairly simple:

• obtain permission of the event organizers and agree with them on a suitable location for the bicycle parking area;
• arrange the use of a sufficient length of plastic construction fencing and suitable posts to enclose the area. Additional fencing may be useful, see below.
  • BFoMB has had 70 bikes parked within a space about 50 feet squared, requiring about 200 feet of fencing and about 15 fence posts.
  • If more bikes are expected, it may help to organize the interior of the parking area with additional lengths of fencing to provide places up against which cycles without kickstands may be leaned.
  • If the parking area is grass or unpaved, a slide hammer for driving the fence posts is a great help.
  • If the parking area is paved, some other method for erecting the fence must be used.
• Wire, twine, and/or (preferably removable/reusable) plastic "zip ties" can be used to hang the fence to fence posts, trees, building features, and other fixed features of the area. Don't attach to any vehicles that might be leaving before the valet parking service has been ended!
• Arrange the fencing around the perimeter of the bicycle parking area. Leave a single opening about 3m or 10' wide. You may find that extending the fencing 2m or 5' into the opening as a funnel helps control people who are dropping off or picking up parked items.
• Obtain a quantity of numbered two-part tickets. These are available by the roll, printed with matching unique numbers on the two parts. For example, a search for "numbered two-part tickets" on Google.com yielded this description: "item CA786 - Double Roll Tickets, 2,000 consecutively numbered tickets per roll. A two part ticket designed for raffles and drawings. Customer keeps half of the ticket ("keep this coupon") and leaves the other half with you ("drop this ticket"). $4.75 per roll. "
• When someone arrives wishing to "park" their bike (or whatever)
  • remove one two-part ticket. One half should be marked "Keep this coupon" or something like that. On the other half, write their phone number. This will aid in finding the owner if they fail to claim the parked bike (or whatever) at the end of the event.
  • Tape the half of the ticket that now has their phone number to the bike, preferably to the same spot (handlebar?) on all bikes so that it is visible to all valet attendants. Don't tape over decals or stickers as they may be pulled off when the ticket is removed.
  • Give the half of the ticket marked "Keep this coupon" to the person leaving their bike, with instructions to present it when they return to claim their bike.
  • The tickets are cheap; fill out a new one for each bike or item parked even if a group of them arrive with the same phone number, for example a family. This will avoid confusion.
• Have a contingency plan for dealing with bikes etc. not claimed at the end of the event.
• Plan for a minimum of two attendants so the barbarians don't overrun the gate.

Checklist for bicycle valet parking