Racking up real world, artistic experience

Brad Raulston rode his bicycle to work on a recent Friday morning.

Usually the executive director of National City, in charge of planning and development, parks his green Schwinn somewhere in his cramped office filled with binders, lose-leaf papers and boxes.

But on this Friday morning, his bike was locked up to a green, tree-shaped structure in front of the doors to City Hall.

About five-feet across that tree fixture, is a M-shaped piece of art with chains dangling on its legs.

The artistically designed metal tree and the M-shape piece are just two of 30 bike racks that soon will be planted throughout National City, thanks to a to a $50,000 San Diego Association of Governments active transportation grant.

National City in turn sub-granted the $50,000 to A Reason To Survive / ARTS Center, which spent the money in purchasing materials for the bicycle racks.

Rather than buying bike racks out of a catalog, National City collaborated with the ARTS Center and Sweetwater Union High School’s welding academy to create artistic bike racks.

The tree-styled bike rack was designed out of wire and aluminum can.

Conceptual artist and sculpture Roman de Salvo held workshops to give the young artists direction in the design of the artistic bike racks.

“All these bike racks are really the products of the workshop in which I’m sort of coaching the students in coming up with different designs,” he said.

In a city with an area of 9.1- square miles, deciding where to place these new bike racks is no easy task.

“Now I’m in the process of figuring out where to put all of these,”Raulston said.

“You want them in front of doors where people need a place to lock their bike, but they’re also public art so you want them to be in an area that’s visible.”

So far, the only installed bike racks are the two in front of City Hall are

Raulston said the first wave of installation would be around Kimball Park.

He said he plans to include bike racks in front of schools.

A bike rack that spells out the word WELCOME, is in the building process and when complete will go in front of the ARTS Center.

Raulston said a bike corral near the ARTS Center is also in the works.

“I want to put it (bike corral) out on the street because it makes it visible, but it also starts to send the message that bikes are as important as cars,” he said.

There are plans to build Figure-Eight style bike racks down Eighth Street, Raulston said.

Creating the bike racks was a three-step process.

The teenage artists first used sticks to model their creation.

Then they made full-scaled prototypes out of wood to make sure the design works before it was ultimately fabricated and welded together.

The introduction of the bike racks are included in the city’s efforts in making National City a more bike friendly city.

Those efforts also consist of new bike lanes and pedestrian improvements.

Andy Hanshaw, executive director of the San Diego County Bicycle Coalition, said the added bike racks promotes bike riding.

“It encourages more people to ride for their everyday trips and transportation,” he said.

He also said it provides additional security and safety for bikes.

Although National City has increased its bike ability, Raulston doesn’t consider National City a bike town – at least not yet.

“It’s getting there,” he said.

Hanshaw said National City is on its way to being a biker town.

“There is a lot of potential (in National City),” he said. “The bike improvements they’ve made can make a difference.”