City trees have difficult lives. Even bicyclists, their fellow symbol
of New Urbanist optimism, do them wrong. New York's citywide scarcity of
bike racks has driven cyclists to secure their vehicles to tree trunks,
an encounter that often ends in the tree's abrasion and subsequent death.
Trees NY, a nonprofit organization dedicated to improving urban life
through planting, preserving, and caring for New York's trees, joined Cooper
Union in sponsoring a competition for designs that could curb the problem.
College students around the country were asked to design structures that
could secure bicycles and discourage tree abuse simultaneously. The winning
entry, by Manuel Saez from the University of Bridgeport, displays an understanding
of the fabrication process overlooked by many of his peers. It consists
of just two sturdy elements: a donut joined to a U-shaped base. "I
realized early on that the design had to be produced cheaply, so I focused
on simple shapes that would be easy to manufacture," he says. Trees
NY plans to install the winning racks at selected sites in Manhattan and
Queens this fall.
