Bike parking, please

In this thoughtless act, a bicycle is locked up to a tree. This thoughtless act occurred on Market, near the Powell Street Bart. Looking around, there was no bike parking in sight, especially near the Bart entrance. Usually, when bikes are locked up, there is a designated place to park a bike, or at least some type of metal pole (e.g parking meter, street sign) that a bike can be locked to. Here, there was nothing. The only option was this tree, which was very pole-like, meaning it was thin enough to get a lock around and tall enough so that potential thieves could not lift the bike upwards.  I suppose if thieves did want this bike enough, they could cut the lock or even chop the tree, which didn’t look that sturdy.

A design solution would be to create a designated bike parking area here. This way, the bicycle owner wouldn’t have to lock his bike to a flimsy tree. Interestingly, there were no other bikes around the area, probably because there was no place to lock them. I wonder if those cyclists went to another entrance?