This is such a good article I had to post it - Thanks Robert and our supplier at The Park Catalog

This is such a good article I had to post it - Thanks Robert and our supplier at The Park Catalog

 -Tom

 

Don’t Make Me Lock My Bike to a Tree! More Commercial Bike Racks Needed

Posted by: Robert Caston January 22, 2016

Adding more commercial bike racks will alleviate situations like this

It’s getting ugly out there. There are just not enough Commercial Bike Racks on streets today to accommodate the growing surge in bicyclists. So defenseless trees are picking up the slack.

Be a hero. Give a bicyclist a place to park. Give a tree a break.

According to Statista, the number of Americans who biked in the past 12 months grew from 47 million in Spring 2008 to a whopping 66.7 million in the Spring of last year.

That’s nearly 20 million more people who now ride a bicycle.

This type of behavior should be rewarded.

After all, bicyclists are doing their part. They are making your community a better place to live.

More of them are riding their bicycles downtown to work than driving. That frees up city streets. Cuts down on congestion. Makes it easier for others to park.

More people are also riding their bicycles to run to town or do errands.

All of this bicycle riding has a major impact on air quality, just like trees. Every time someone pedals a bicycle anywhere, they are not putting more exhaust into the atmosphere.

Tree bike

And more people are finding bicycling is a great way to stay healthy. That means a physically fitter population spending less time in hospitals.

First Lady Michelle Obama has made it her mission to reduce obesity in the US. She points out that riding a bike does that. Kids love it (especially when they aren’t old enough to drive a car).

Baby boomers are jumping on the bicycle wagon as well. There’s a popular saying now: “bicycling is the new golf.”

Nearly 67 million people are doing all these great things by hopping on their bicycles.

So how are they being rewarded by the community?

Because there are so many bicycles and there’s such a shortage of secure commercial bike racks, bicyclists have almost been forced to act like outlaws.

They have to lock their bikes to trees. Or to sign posts. Or to railings. Whatever they can find.

This is not good. For one, a tree is not exactly as secure as a 1.9-inch diameter commercial bike rack manufactured with steel piping that is embedded into the concrete with an in-ground mount. Locks and chains can damage tree bark. Bikes also parked next to trees can impede pedestrian traffic.

Here’s another other issue that is out there. Stealing bicycles has become popular with thieves – low level street criminals. The FBI estimates $1 million bicycles are stolen every year. (Here’s an account of one thief who just grabbed a bicycle every time he needed a few bucks.)

According to crooks, it’s relatively easy to rip off a bike. Bust a cheap lock. Cut a tree. So many targets are parked incorrectly or locked to the wrong thing. City streets that don’t offer bicycle parking force bicyclists to park their bikes in low-visibility areas near alleys or in the back of buildings. Guess who knows exactly where these spots are located – bike thieves with cutting tools.

Then you have the issue of street signs. A bicyclist wants to park his or her bike legitimately to a commercial bike rack, but there aren’t any around.

So they lock it to a street sign. There are plenty of those. Guess what? In some cities, that’s illegal. The bike lock will be cut and the bike confiscated. Not only that, in some towns there is a fine as high as $1,000 if you lock your bike to a sign.

Most bikes don’t even cost that much.

No parking sign becomes a bicycle parking rack

Then there’s the issue of private property. Business owners might get upset to see a bike locked to a tree or railing on their property (if they provided commercial bike racks, they wouldn’t have to worry about that.).

They will cut the locks (they have that right). They will take the bikes (they don’t have that right).

Even if they don’t take the bike away, an unlocked bicycle standing on a busy street won’t last for long (see note on thieves above).

How to fight back with more commercial bike racks

Municipalities know bicycle parking is a major issue. Many are doing their part to add more bicycle parking racks.

The smart ones also realize it’s in their best interest to provide more outdoor bike racks. For example, how great would it be on if 50% of the population rode their bicycle to work instead of driving there? They do this in places like Copenhagen now.

That means you don’t need to spend more money on expanding roads. You don’t have motorists complaining about traffic jams. You have people spending money in local shops because the parking is not so bad.

The air will be cleaner. The citizens will be healthier. The public will be happier. Trees will breathe a sigh of relief.

Smart businesses also realize how they can easily attract more customers just by adding commercial bike racks in front of their stores or restaurants. Merchant associations would also be smart to make sure there are plenty of commercial bike racks available in their shopping districts.

Studies in Oregon showed that businesses that provide commercial bike racks benefited greatly from the bicycling consumer. Researchers found that the bicycling consumer visited a business more often than a motorist. While they spent less per visit, cumulatively over the course of a month they spent more. Wouldn’t it be cool to add more parking in front of your business? Consider bicycle parking. After all, a vehicle is a vehicle.

NYC added a bike path in front of a bunch of stores in Manhattan and the stores reported an increase in overall sales. A bicycling consumer is more likely to notice your business than a motorist who has to worry about the cars in front and behind and finding a place to park that giant chunk of metal.

In other words, if you want a magnet to easily draw more customers to your business, add a U-shaped bike rack (it actually resembles a magnet). It works.

Railing becomes bicycle parking rack

City officials need to be sure that for every gargantuan car parking garage out there, they should add a number of commercial bike racks. That’s a no-brainer.

Local bike clubs and local bike shops would be smart to band together to get their towns to add more bicycle parking racks. While every municipality has budget constraints, it’s still the squeaky wheel that gets the attention. Organize a mass gathering at any town council meeting and officials will listen.

Bicyclists don’t have to be antagonistic. Theirs is a noble and just cause. Just present the facts. Show pictures of areas where bicycle parking is sorely needed.

Compared to other municipal expenditures, buying a handful of commercial bike racks is minuscule. But it could have a big impact on downtown parking and the revenue of local businesses (and sales taxes).

For events, talk to parks and recreation department officials. Towns love to hold festivals and events. It brings recognition to the town. Creates a sense of pride. And generates quite a bit of revenue. But everybody hates the traffic.

Local streets fill beyond capacity when there is an event. There’s a hundred times more vehicles on the road than normal. It’s always a nightmare.

Think how great it would be if event organizers offered bicycle valet parking? Say they cut traffic by just 20%. That’s significant. More people would enjoy the event and more people would find it easier to get home. This whole concept of temporary bicycle valet parking is catching on big with many towns.

The numbers speak for themselves. There are 20 million more people riding bicycles than just eight years ago. There are more bike share programs coming to towns. Bicycle tourism is increasing in popularity.

The right path is clear. Bicyclists are doing their part. Adding more commercial bike racks is certainly more desirable than damaging trees. Build it and they will park their bike next to it.

(If you like this blog please pass it on by hitting the share buttons below. You might just save a tree).

Playground Repairs Made Easy

If your thinking of repairing rubber playground surfaces or running tracks using Discount Playground Supply Fast Patch Repair Kits make sure the temperature is over 45 degrees F for at least several hours. Also and the surface needs to be dry with no rain or snow in the forecast. Other than that, repairs will be quick and easy. Great standard color selection and custom blends too

Here's what one of our many customer wrote

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Six Tips for Playground and Park Safety

The playground should be a place where kids can come to engage with their surroundings and have a fun time blowing off steam on equipment like slides, swings and seesaws. If the playground isn’t a safe space, however, it makes it a lot more difficult to prevent serious injuries or other mishaps from occurring. The following six tips will ensure that parks remain a fun and injury-free place for kids to visit!


1.    It is very important that all play structures more than 30 inches high are spaced at least nine feet apart. In order to ensure that no injuries occur due to incorrectly spaced equipment.


2.    Always check for sharp points or edges on the equipment that kids will be interacting with and running around on. Objects like hardware, s-shaped hooks, bolts and sharp or unfinished edges can stick out of equipment and severely cut children or get stuck in clothing. It’s also important to pay careful attention to swing seats so that you can make sure no sharp metal inserts have become exposed.


3.    Tripping hazards like exposed concrete footings, tree stumps, roots, and rocks can contribute to serious injuries on the playground. It’s important to make sure that the space is free of any of these major hazardous materials before children are allowed to visit.


4.    Always make sure that guardrails and other safe barriers are in place for elevated surfaces like platforms and ramps. This helps prevent any serious falls from occurring and generally makes the playground a safer place.


5.    When a playground has proper surfacing, this can do a great job of reducing the number of injuries that occur when kids trip or fall from equipment. It’s important that the surface under the playground equipment be soft and substantial enough to soften the impact if a child were to fall. Surfaces made of rubber tend to be safe and allow easier access for anyone using a wheelchair.


6.    Children should be carefully supervised on the playground at all times. When someone is there to look out for them, it prevents injuries from occurring and overall misuse of equipment. It’s also important to be in close proximity just in case an injury does happen to occur so that first aid can be administered immediately.  

Check out Discount Playground Supply, browse our wide selection of playground maintenance equipment and let us know if you have any other tips in the comments!

This article is too good not to post-

Restoring Peace: Six Ways Nature in Our Lives can Reduce Violence in our World
by Richard Louv 8/2/2015 - Children and Nature Network

One potential tool for reducing human violence is seldom mentioned.

Let me say right off that I don’t pretend that nature is a paragon of peace. Writer Herman Melville once challenged the idea of nature as “the grand cure,” as he put it, and asked “who froze to death my teamster on the prairie?”  The violence of nature is a fact, but this is also true: by assaulting nature, we raise the odds that we will assault each other. By bringing nature into our lives, we invite humility.

“In our studies, people with less access to nature show relatively poor attention or cognitive function, poor management of major life issues, poor impulse control,” says Frances Kuo, a professor at the University of Illinois, adding that humans living in a neighborhood stripped of nature undergo patterns of social, psychological, and physical breakdown similar to those observed in animals deprived of their natural habitat. “In animals, what you see is increased aggression, disrupted parenting patterns, and disrupted social hierarchies.”

On the other hand, in some settings the natural world does have the power to heal human hearts and prevent violence. That statement isn’t based on modern Romanticism, but on a growing body of mainly correlative scientific evidence, with a tight focus on the impact of nearby nature.

Here are six reasons why meaningful relationships with nature may — in concert with other approaches — bolster mental health and civility, and reduce human violence in our world.
1. Green exercise improves psychological health.

“There is growing . . . empirical evidence to show that exposure to nature brings substantial mental health benefits,” according to “Green Exercise and Green Care,” a report by researchers at the University of Essex. “Our findings suggest that priority should be given to developing the use of green exercise as a therapeutic intervention.” Among the benefits: improvement of psychological well-being; generation of physical health benefits by reducing blood pressure and burning calories; and the building of social networks.
2. In some cases, greening neighborhoods may help reduce domestic violence.

In a Chicago public housing development, researchers compared the lives of women living in apartment buildings with no greenery outside to those who lived in identical buildings—but with trees and greenery immediately outside. Those living near the trees exhibited fewer aggressive and violent acts against their partners. They have also shown that play areas in urban neighborhoods with more trees have fewer incidences of violence, possibly because the trees draw a higher proportion of responsible adults.
3. Natural playgrounds may decrease bullying.

In Sweden, Australia, Canada and the U.S., researchers have observed that when children played in an environment dominated by play structures rather than natural elements, they established their social hierarchy through physical competence; after an open grassy area was planted with shrubs, children engaged in more fantasy play, and their social standing became based less on physical abilities and more on language skills, creativity and inventiveness. Such play also provided greater opportunities for boys and girls to play together in egalitarian ways.
Enjoying a turtle found in nature4. Other species help children develop empathy.

We’ve known for decades that children and the elderly are calmed when domestic pets are introduced in therapy, or included in rehabilitative or residential care. We also know that children can learn empathy by caring for pets. Some mental-health practitioners are taking the next step: using pets and natural environments as part of their therapy sessions. Cherie L. Spehar, a Licensed Clinical Social Worker and Play Therapist, who has served as executive director of The Child Abuse Prevention Center in Raleigh, N.C., recommends to therapists, “Bring nature play into your sessions, as it is a resource rich in opportunities for practicing kindness. Introduce them to every form of life and teach respect for it.”
5. Greater biodiversity in cities can increase social and family bonding.

Scientists at the University of Sheffield in the U.K. report that the more species that live in a park, the greater the psychological benefits to human beings. “Our research shows that maintaining biodiversity levels is important . . . not only for conservation, but also to enhance the quality of life for city residents,” said Richard Fuller of the Department of Animal and Plant Science at Sheffield.

In related work, researchers at the University of Rochester, in New York, report that exposure to the natural environment leads people to nurture close relationships with fellow human beings, to value community, and to be more generous with money. By contrast, the more intensely people in the study focused on “artificial elements,” the higher they rated wealth and fame. One of the researchers, Richard M. Ryan, noted, “[We’ve] found nature brings out more social feelings, more value for community and close relationships. People are more caring when they’re around nature.”
Discovering nature in flowers6. More nature in our lives can offset the dangerous psychological impact of climate change.

Professor Glenn Albrecht, director of the Institute of Sustainability and Technology Policy at Murdoch University in Australia, has coined a term specific to mental health: solastalgia, which he defines as “the pain experienced when there is recognition that the place where one resides and that one loves is under immediate assault.” Albrecht asks: Could people’s mental health be harmed by an array of shifts, including subtle changes of climate?

If he’s right in suggesting this is so, and if climate change occurs at the rate that some scientists believe it will, and if human beings continue to crowd into de-natured cities, then solastalgia will, he believes, contribute to a quickening spiral of mental illness.

We are not powerless in the face of planetary or societal challenges. Granted, we will not be able to prevent every violent tragedy, but we can surely make our lives greener and gentler. And that positive influence may ripple outward in ways we cannot immediately measure or see.

“Simply getting people together, outside, working in a caring capacity with nature, perhaps even intergenerationally, may be as important as the healing of nature itself,” suggests Rick Kool, a professor in the School of Environment and Sustainability at Royal Roads University in Victoria, British Columbia. “Perhaps, in trying to ‘heal the world’ through restoration, we end up healing ourselves.”

Richard Louv is chairman emeritus of the Children & Nature Network and author of THE NATURE PRINCIPLE: Reconnecting With Life in a Virtual Age and LAST CHILD IN THE WOODS: Saving Our Children from Nature-Deficit Disorder, from which some of this essay is adapted. A version of this essay also appeared in this space on January 10, 2013. Top photo by R.L., middle photo by Jon Beard.

I really like this article and fully advocate getting kids away from computers / smartphone and outside for exercise and fun. There is no phone app for outside play
http://www.playgroundprofessionals.com/magazine/issues/2014/improving-health-and-fitness-children-lifetime-health606

Tom Siebert
Discount Playground Supply
888.760.2499

Handicap Ramps - Gateway to a Successful Playground

Gateway to a Successful Playground

ADA Wheelchair Ramps

By now we all should be aware of the  March 2012 ADA accessibility requirement for all commercial playgrounds...every commercial playground needs to be accessible. Interesting observation about the installation of ADA wheelchair ramps is our customers are reporting kids seem to be using the ramp as an entrance to the playground and not just jumping over the plastic playground border anymore. Imagine that, ADA ramps are becoming the "gateway" to playgrounds.

When selecting a wheelchair ramp please be aware they are available in a variety of sizes and designs. Ramps are fitted to 8" , 9" or 12" Plastic Playground Borders and are either a full or half ramp. The most popular style is the 1/2 ramp. If you have questions on which ramp is right for your, you can always call us at 888.760.2499


Tom Siebert
Discount Playground Supply
888.760.2499

Discount Playground Supply


Active Play Safety – Spring 2014

Spring brings increased opportunity for outside play. It is a good time to check outdoor active play areas. Check and fix indoor active play areas too. The design and maintenance of large muscle play areas should provide risk-taking opportunities that are not likely to cause serious harm.  The most common and most severe injuries in child care occur during active play.   

Outdoor areas can be multi-purpose. They can  accommodate activities that build a variety of skills: small muscle movement, literacy, numeracy, science and appreciation of nature. They should be a place for daily moderate to vigorous physical activity. For safety, be sure to divide different types of activities to maintain safe distances between them. As much as possible, design safety into the active play area rather than rely on supervision.  Then concentrate supervision in active play areas where risk-taking is likely or encouraged.

Instead of expensive climbing equipment that requires high levels of maintenance and supervision, you can make a low cost climber by using a hill of sand or grass over dirt. A hill challenges children to use a variety of climbing skills and gross motor experiences.  Indoors or outdoors, give children tunnels, low level obstacle courses, and surfaces to practice walking in a straight line. A big cardboard appliance box with all sharp edges removed makes a no cost tunnel.  Use plastic hoops and ribbons in patterns or chalk on a sidewalk for an obstacle course or a board on the ground to practice balance.

Children soon lose interest in expensive equipment that seems so attractive to adults. They may start inventing hazardous ways to use it.  If the play area has equipment from which children can fall, this equipment must have proper surfacing under and at the required distance around it. Asphalt, concrete, and other hard surfaces as well as grass and dirt are not acceptable surfacing or materials for equipment from which children can fall. Use properly installed loose fill surfacing or use surfacing materials like poured-in-place rubber or artificial grass that meet the guidelines in the Public Playground Safety Handbook published by the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission http://www.cpsc.gov/PageFiles/122149/325.pdf.) If maintenance of the equipment and surfacing is too costly or too difficult, remove that equipment.

For advice about safe active play, use the resources recommended by the Early Childhood Education Linkage System (ECELS)-Healthy Child Care Pennsylvania.  Go to the ECELS website home page. Enter “injury” in the search box.  Look at the list of items related to injury and active play.  Then, return to the home page and search for “active play. The items about injury prevention and active play on the ECELS website include information, handouts, and web links to many useful online resources.  Use the two Self-Learning Modules that address Active Play: the newly updated Active Play and Head Bumps Matter. You can also request a workshop about this topic.  These professional development activities earn Keystone STARS professional development credit.  

In October 2013, ECELS published Model Child Care Health Policies, 5th edition (MCCHP5.)  This fill-in-the-blank set of polices is based on best practices defined in Caring for Our Children, 3rd edition. Using MCCHP5 eases the burden of drafting site-specific policies.  For large muscle play, MCCHP5 includes requirements for equipment, supervision, maintenance, required clothing, footwear, risk-control, and teacher participation in activities. Use the forms in MCCHP5 Appendix O: Daily and Monthly Playground Inspection and Maintenance and in Appendix P: Staff Assignments for Active (Large-Muscle) Play.  MCCHP5 is free online at: http://www.ecels-healthychildcarepa.org/publications/manuals-pamphlets-policies/item/248-model-child-care-health-policies. You can buy the hard copy, printed version of this publication atwww.aap.org/bookstore.

Betsy Caesar, MEd, Certified Playground Safety Inspector (CPSI) and Dennis Smiddle, CPSI contributed to this article.