The Vancouver Sun & Province Building aka Granville Square in Vancouver, BC, installed bike racks outside of their building. You’d think the bike racks are for parking bikes, right?

Molly Millar, the fashion editor for Momentum Magazine, rode her bike to her day job as a researcher at this Class A office building. At the end of the day, she was surprised to see a parking ticket on her bike!

The nonplussed Millar wrote the building management company, Cadillac Fairview about the ticket. Their response:

Hi Molly, We do like to encourage cycling to work and our tenants to think about being ‘green’ … but we also need to maintain the professional image of the building. We don’t want to encourage all day parking of bikes throughout our plaza, which would deter from this [professional image].

It turns out the bike racks are for couriers only, with a 15 minute time limit for parking.

Cadillac Fairview highlights their green initiatives, including their “Green At Work” program for their Vancouver waterfront properties, on their website.

At Cadillac Fairview, we take pride in being industry leaders and adopting progressive environmental standards and practices that demonstrate our commitment to corporate social responsibility. The sucessful execution of company-wide green initiatives is being achieved through a detailed, measurable, and long-term program called GREEN AT WORK™. This program is national in scope; implemented at all properties, it has set operational benchmarks to reduce energy consumption and waste, improve environmental protection, and encourage sustainable procurement and ongoing communication with key stakeholders. GREEN AT WORK™ supports Cadillac Fairview’s ongoing commitment to corporate social responsibility with the belief that by working with our tenants, employees, suppliers, and customers we are “building sustainability together™”.

Update: After publication of this post, other people who work in that building pointed out to me that long term bike parking is available out of the way in the parking garage, with bike lockers for everyday bike commuters. The lockers are apparently assigned to individuals for a nominal annual fee. These outside racks frequently fill up, which makes it difficult for the couriers who depend on these racks for their jobs. It’s unclear to me what’s available on an ad hoc basis for occasional commuters and visitors who need to stay longer than 15 minutes.

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