Students and faculty at Ryerson University are very lucky to have one of the most exceptional examples of bicycle parking in all of Toronto. Ryerson’s campus features parking for roughly 1,000 bikes using racks, ring and posts, and an indoor parking facility.

Read the full post on Bikeroo in TO.

While I was late getting there… the finalist models were still set up, so I took some photos of the great designs for you (also viewable on flickr):

Once I got home, I checked around online to see if I could find which design won the competition, and the information is already on the Mt. Pleasant website:

“What we particularly liked about the winning design is its practicality and playfulness. It’s immediately pleasing to the eye – and fun to engage with – and at the same time, it fits perfectly into the existing landscape. Indeed, the boldness of this design makes it a symbol of the ongoing re-design of the urban environment.”

The winning design team

A proud member of the winning design team

The jury hard at work

The design chosen for production and winners of $3,000: Katy Alter and Jeff Cogliati

Runners up and winners of $2,000: Shiwa Tseng, Kenneth Lee, and Michael Goriup

Runners up and winners of $1,000: Michael Shafir and Tommy Tso

I rather like the winning design… it was one of my favourites when I was looking at the models.  My other favourite was the design that placed 2nd, which is the one that looks like a series of ramps in the slideshow above.

What do you think?  Did the jury make a good decision?  Do you like one of the other designs better?

The Massey Family Crypt

Mount Pleasant Group of Cemeteries has asked Ryerson’s School of Interior Design students to create specially-designed bicycle racks that will enhance the unique and bicycle-friendly environment that exists within the Mount Pleasant grounds.

• What: Judging and Winners announced
• When: 3:00 p.m., Thursday, January 21, 2010
• Where: Room SID 106, School of Interior Design, 302 Church Street (google map), Ryerson University

Each design team will work on one site designated as a possible future bicycle rack in locations throughout the cemetery. As Mount Pleasant Cemetery is a working cemetery and a well-established arboretum, the designs must respect and enhance the use of the cemetery for all users and consider road allowances, drainage and the mature plant forms. Due to the sensitivity of the environment in which they will be placing their bicycle rack, special care will need to be paid to the appropriate use of colour and shape to enhance, not detract, from the current cemetery setting.

For anyone who’s been to Mount Pleasant Cemetary (yes, it’s a great place to bike!), you’ll know that it’s an old and very stately cemetary, with high profile grave sites of people like former Prime Minister William Lyon-MacKenzie King and the Massey family.

It’ll be interesting to see what the design students come up with.

The new Ryerson student centre (rendering above) will be replacing and/or enhancing the old Sam the Record Man building at Yonge & Gould is planned to have bicycle only parking, according to a recent article in the Star:

The single most dramatic gesture would be to close Gould St. between Yonge and Church Sts. That would help make Ryerson a truly pedestrian precinct, and provide the means to establish a genuine campus, one that belongs to students.

“I think closing Gould will lead the process,” says Ryerson president and CEO Sheldon Levy. “We can’t be passive to the city-building aspect of the plan.”

He also admits proposals he once worried would be viewed as “radical” are now seen as “moderate.”

The appetite for change is growing; suddenly ideas like closing Gould, tearing down Kerr Hall, and turning the recently purchased Sam The Record Man site into a student centre with bicycle-only parking make eminent sense.

Indeed, we are starting to grasp that old ways of doing things – handing over cities to cars and building hideous schools – are irrational and destructive.

Along with a pedestrian/cyclist-friendly Master Plan under way (including making part of Gould St. closed to cars), Ryerson is on its way to becoming BikeU for Toronto. Let’s hope this will inspire the other downtown institute of higher learning, UofT (to plan for people and make some pedestrian boulevardes out of city streets) and maybe even YorkU, up there on the edge of the city (but in the heart of suburbia).

If you’re wondering about Sam’s giant iconic spinning record signs (which have been granted heritage status by the city), the new building is supposed to incorporate them, making them an indoor feature.

They’d look pretty cool as the spinning wheels of a giant bike…

Rendering courtesy of Torontoist.