MVTA Stories

More Than Meets The Ride

By: Jason DeMoe

To the untrained eye, a bike locker at a transit station is nothing more a storage unit. Transit rider Dan is living proof that it can mean a whole lot more than just a place to lock up your bicycle during your commute and subsequent work day.

“I am a divorced dad living north of the Minnesota River and my kids live here in the south metro,” he said. “There are many days, due to busy sports schedules, that we wouldn’t have enough time to drive back and forth from here to my home. Often, the kids only have a quick 60 or 90 minutes between activities.”

Dan picks up his kids, heads to his bike locker at either Blackhawk or Rosemount Park and Ride, and grabs the bikes for a family ride.

Although his kids might be his most important reason, Dan also enjoys using the MVTA bike lockers for some added peace of mind. Knowing his bike is protected mean knowing that future rides with his kids are not in jeopardy.

“I work in a very unsafe neighborhood,” Dan said. “These lockers allow me not to have to worry about what might happen to my bike if I had it with me during work hours.”

Providing transportation from point A to point B may be the backbone of a transit agency, but it certainly isn’t the only thing that Minnesota Valley Transit Authority is made of.