Premise: I ride my bike to a local destination on a regular basis, but there's no rack for me to use to secure my bike when I get there. I have friends that face the same issues and neighbors that would likely ride their bikes if there was a safe place to secure them. It would be great if we could crowd-source funding for the rack and present the funds to Raleigh to install the rack.

SeeClickFix has a module for crowd-sourced projects called SeeClickFix Projects that could facilitate this.

Issues:

• equity: wealthy neighborhoods could fund facilities in their area, leaving less-wealthy areas to fend for themselves
• site issues: right of way, safety, etc. studies would be required to determine feasability
• fiduciary issues: In SeeClickFix Projects, funds are sent to the person that starts the project. This person in turn would present funds to the city. If the city isn't able to immediately accept funds, there's potential for real or perceived impropriety
• damage: if an item that is crowd-funded gets damaged, the city wouldn't want to repair/replace the item
• is it possible to hit a point where city (or state) relinquishes it's own duties to fulfill these types of duties? Do they, at some point, say  - great, people are paying for bike racks themselves, let's cut all funding for them from our budget.

Ideas: 

• to solve the equity issue: adopt a policy similar to the Percent for Public Art program maintained by the city arts commission. A percentage for each project would be set aside for a pool of funds that would fund projects in under-served areas.