Bike parking. Built right into the sidewalk. Invisible until you need it.

A door handle. We don’t think twice about them, and yet here it is, an object of beauty.

Bike racks. They’re everywhere! They vary in design. They are not an art project, or behind the building, or a design contest for kids, or hard to find. You can park your bike in them and lock it up. Simple. Useful. Everywhere.

Bike locks. Bolted into the frame. Just don’t forget your key when you park it.

This was prompted by a conversation with K.D. Lovgren. We can choose how we want to live in the world, but it requires making value judgements. These are mine. x.com/i/moments/1006…

Shopping by bike. Sometimes I bump into people I know while riding to the grocery store. I live nearby so I don’t have to shop for everything at once. If I forget an item in a recipe I go back. Bike parking is in front of the entrance to the store.

Dedicated bike lanes. This one is made from a smooth rubber material, others are concrete pavers, some on asphalt streets. Always the same color, salmon red, so you know when you are standing in one and you hear the bike bells ringing at you.

Another bike rack. Boring, but useful when you need to chain your bike to something solid. I’ve come to the conclusion that bike racks should be boring. When it looks like it could be a modern art sculpture it has ceased being a bike rack.

A short video showing the rest of the townhouses (from a previous tweet) and their relationship to each other on the block. Beautiful and coherent with enough variation in color, style and position to be interesting. It works.

A short video showing the rest of the street (from a previous tweet). Brick, three or four story townhouses. Consistent brick color, window placement and size, relationship to each other and the sidewalk. Enough variation to be interesting. Human-scale and beautiful.

A few highlights from today’s bike ride into downtown. Details matter. They make it pleasant to be in a space. They give you something to look at and think about. They might even tell you a story.

Details everywhere. Functional too, not just a decorative touch.

What wars, governments, royals, soliders, judges and tyrants have these walls seen? I want to know more about it just looking at this photograph. What stories do you hold?

The bus I just hopped on to get to the central train station comes every fifteen minutes. I walked out my front door without checking the bus schedule and waited nine minutes. Bus stop tells me how many minutes wait for the next four buses. That’s how it should work.