I really do appreciate the efforts that some businesses make to appear bike-friendly. Putting bike racks out front does go a long way over nothing at all and I certainly appreciate steps like that. Especially when the racks are fairly prominently placed so you don't have to walk through a sea of car parking after locking up your bike. But bike racks alone do not a bike-friendly business make. There are plenty of ways that this can be messed up. One that I've observed far too often is racks that would otherwise be useful clogged up with shopping carts and other things. I've seen two particularly egregious examples of this at a Target and Safeway. In each case, instead of leaving bike parking open and creating an inviting situation, the parking is blocked with shopping carts. In the case of Safeway in El Cerrito, CA, it almost appears as though this was being done intentionally by someone working there. Luckily in this case, there are additional racks to use. In the case of Target, it appears to be the case of someone putting the cart there by mistake. Hopefully an employee removed it later so the person with their bike parked there isn't crowded out and can easily access their bike.
Another way that businesses can fail in this way is to provide absolutely worthless bike parking. Again, Safeway is an offender here. Again, the racks are located in a decent location, near the front entrance of the store. But if you want to actually lock your bike up securely, this type of rack is worthless. You can use the ends, as this bike owner did, but that means the whole rack can hold two bikes. Otherwise, you're only able to lock your front wheel which can be easily stolen with or without quick-releases.
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