VtF Board member Jocko Doss recognized in YachatsNews.com for his initiative and success in addressing a need in the Yachats village. He shows how one person really can make a difference.
By CHERYL ROMANO/YachatsNews.com
It took the disappearance of an old bike rack in downtown Yachats for Jocko Doss to realize how few there were in the city. That’s about to change.
An avid cyclist, Doss wheels around town almost every day on an electric-assist bike and made a habit of securing it to a bike rack in front of the Visitor Center in the C&K Plaza. But then the rickety rack was removed.
“That got bike racks on my radar, and I started looking around,” he said. “We just don’t have many bike racks.”
In fact, Doss found only four racks in town — at the library, along Yachats Ocean Road “in the bushes,” and two at the Dublin House motel, one of which is blocked by planters.
“There are none located in town where one would expect to find them,” he told YachatsNews.
So instead of merely complaining about it, Doss got to work.
He’s a board member of View the Future, the Yachats nonprofit land conservation group, and submitted a plan to get its support. His plan noted that “Most communities have secure bicycle parking (at) convenient locations such as restaurants, stores, parks, city halls, churches, etc.” Waldport and Newport are nearby examples, it said.
Steel racks at three city locations
Doss included a long list of potential sites from the Yachats Commons to most downtown restaurants and local motels. But he didn’t stop there.
He approached a Washington state business called Urban Bicycle Parking Systems to determine what type of rack would be best — and how much it would cost. The result? Detailed specification sheets and diagrams for inverted U-shape racks made of stainless steel, measuring some 25 inches wide by 34 inches tall at a unit cost of about $600, including shipping.
Consulting with Rick McClung of the city’s Public Works Department, Doss identified the three target spots on city property. Installing the racks, which would be done by Public Works, is estimated to cost another $500 per rack.
He took his plan to the Yachats Parks & Commons Commission, which has recommended to City Council that it spend $3,200 to install racks at three locations — in front of City Hall, near the entrance to the Pavilion behind the Commons, and near the Yachats Farmer’s Market parking area on West Fourth Street.
The council is expected to take up the request in November.
But Doss hasn’t stopped pedaling. He’s starting to approach Yachats businesses about installing racks, and is working Oregon Coast Visitors Association, which touts biking along the coast.
“For bike riders passing through our town, bike racks encourage them to stop and patronize our businesses,” Doss says.
“You’ll see people coming through on tours with very expensive road bikes — they’ll take them into a business with them,” he said. “Other folks carry a cable lock and lock their bike to a sign post a telephone pole, anything stationary, but sometimes those things aren’t available.”
In those instances some riders simply park their bikes near a building and run the cable through the wheels. If not secured to something solid, though, the entire bike can be lifted and “thrown into the back of a pick-up truck easily.”
Response to the bike racks proposal from businesses and city leadership has been “overwhelmingly positive,” said Doss, who moved from California to Yachats in 2017 with his wife, DK Foster.
He brought with him a long track record of working with people and the environment in the San Francisco Bay area. Doss led young trail-builders in the Youth and Young Adult Conservation Corps and the Marin (County) Conservation Corps. He later became director of the Walker Creek Ranch Outdoor School and Conference Center, and facilities manager for the Ventura County Human Services Agency.
An avid cyclist “since ever I could ride a bike,” Doss occasionally volunteers at the Green Bike Co-op in Waldport, where bikes are available for loan, rent and sale.
“Bicycle racks are an overlooked, but important, piece of infrastructure,” he says. “If we want to encourage people to come enjoy our town safely and use our businesses, we should have suitable infrastructure and make it a welcoming experience.”
“… there are just no negatives”
Noting that the city already has an electric vehicle charging station, and parking spaces for the handicapped, Doss believes bike racks are a much-needed addition for public safety and convenience.
“Bicycling is such a critical type of transportation and recreation: it’s economically sound, environmentally sound … to me, there are just no negatives.”
At least one member of the Yachats City Council enthusiastically agrees.
“The more people we can get out of their cars, the better,” says Ann Stott. “Our community is an excellent place to walk around and bike around, but if you do bike, there isn’t anywhere to lock your bike up.”
As the council’s liaison to Parks & Commons, Stott heard Doss’ proposal when he came before it and “I was impressed.”
“To see a citizen step up and come to the governing bodies with not only an observation of a need, but also legwork and a solution … I want to commend him,” she said.
Stott herself zips around town on an electric bike, and has seen the need for racks firsthand. For quick visits to the Post Office and grocery, she simply parks her bike near the building entrances. Although the e-bikes used by her and Doss are heavier and harder to steal than people-powered models, “If I wanted to pop down somewhere to the beach, I’d need to lock up my bike — and there’s almost nowhere to do that.”
As Doss continues his one-man campaign to make Yachats a more bike-friendly city, he invites the like-minded to email him: JockoDoss@gmail.com
Meanwhile, he’ll keep pedaling along.
- Cheryl Romano is a Yachats freelance reporter who contributes regularly to YachatsNews.com.
