Stephanie Hugh

New bike racks along Atlantic Avenue aren’t all that secure, one rider discovered last week. They’re fastened to the sidewalk with screws the length of a MetroCard (below).

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Ever wonder whether the rack you just locked your bike to is secure? Well, wonder no more. It isn’t.

A Boerum Hill woman found that out the hard way when one of the city’s newly installed bike racks on Atlantic Avenue was ripped out of the cement this week by a thief, who then made an easy get away with a beloved mountain bike.

Now the victim, Stephanie Hugh, is calling on the city to investigate the security of its 4,000 cycle stands.

Hugh locked her cherry-red Voodoo Hoodoo bike to the new rack near Hoyt Street on Wednesday night — the first (and last, as it turned out) time she used the rack.

Hugh returned the next morning to find her bike gone and the arch-like steel rack completely uprooted.

The incident was first reported on Streetsblog, a Web site.

“This makes me feel like it’s a little too difficult to bike in New York,” said Hugh. “If I do bike in the city again I will not use the racks.”

Joshua Benson, bicycle program coordinator for the city’s Department of Transportation, said that the hooligan must have driven into the steel arch until it toppled.

“Unless you’re the Incredible Hulk, you’re not yanking that out of the ground,” said Benson. “Only extreme force can dislodge these racks.” Perhaps, but Hugh blamed the vandalism on the fact that the racks are anchored with Metrocard-sized bolts.

As a result of Hugh’s experience, some cyclists are look twice at the new bike stands, a big piece of Mayor Bloomberg’s PlaNYC goal of increasing bike use.

“The rack design is generally good, but the anchor is not strong enough,” said Carolina Samponaro of Transportation Alternatives. “A [security device] is only as strong as its weakest link.”

The new city racks are made of square steel tubes rather than the round ones so that pipe-cutters can’t fit around them.

But they are not, apparently, immune to being bashed by cars.

©2007 Community Newspaper Group