Over the last few months, there has been a steady stream of photos and videos showcasing the world’s largest bicycle parking garage that opened in Amsterdam. This facility, which is completely free for daily use under 24 hours, and this massive investment by the municipal government, is not simply to benefit those who ride bicycles.
I don’t think parking would solve anything since there’s nowhere to actually ride the bicycle…
What we need is a complete reimagining of transportation. Instead of bicycle parking:
For example, my city has a handful of train lines, but they don’t go to many of the tourist-friendly destinations. I live near a lot of ski resorts, and none have a decent way to get there via mass transit. Here’s what you need to do to get to the ski resort from the airport:
And from anywhere outside the city center, replace 1 with the commuter rail.
Sounds decent, right? Wrong. I work at the end of bus line 1 (huge business park, and tons of traffic at the highway intersection there), and it would take 1.5-2 hours to get to my office from the airport via transit, vs 25 min by car. I think there’s a shuttle from the airport, but transit really should be able to handle it.
If we replaced 2-3 with a dedicated train or BRT line, that would cut transit time in half. Traffic can get awful along the highways, and this could bypass that for commuters.
So what is the transportation authority’s solution? Expand the highway so we can make that 25 min trip time more consistent (it’s ~35 min in traffic).
If my city said I could have a bicycle parking garage anywhere in the city for free, I wouldn’t know where to put it because there’s no real hub for cyclists. The only people who ride in my area are either hobbyists getting exercise, homeless people, and children. Nobody rides for transportation because that’s a recipe for death. There are plenty of bicycle paths, but they don’t connect to anything interesting so they’re mostly useful for recreation.
Maybe it would work in NYC or Toronto or something, but there’s so much more groundwork needed in most of NA before cycling infrastructure is a relevant discussion. I can park my bike in my office or ulock it to a street sign, but I need a way to get there first.
You aren’t wrong! My city has been doing it’s best to set up bike infrastructure, but it’s fragmented. Some bike routes lead to busy roads, and other multiuse paths begin and end “nowhere”.
For me, safe bike parking works when I’ve reached my destination, but you are right, we need to be able to get to that destination!
While I personally don’t think I have much use for a large, underground parking garage to put my bike, I’d like to see bike parking being made available in front of businesses.
I once took an entire day to ride around to look for places that have/didn’t have bike parking so I could plot them on OpenStreetMap. I couldn’t believe how many didn’t have a bike rack. We’re talking about well-known companies like Starbucks or Shopper’s Drug Mart (Canada). Even some large plazas failed to put a single bike rack, which would have serviced several dozen small businesses.
The best thing we can do as individuals, is to play an active role with municipal planners, active transportation communities, development projects (public feedback), and local businesses. The more need we create for cycling infrastructure and alternative forms of transportation, the more pressure there is to implement them.
One thing that frustrates me is poor bicycle parking. Such as:
Granted, my city has a really low crime rate, but it still shows that bicycle infrastructure is not a priority. But when I go shopping, I usually ignore the rack and secure my bike to the cart return or something which is secured to the pavement.
At least our main bike path now has bike repair stations every few miles (never needed, but it’s nice to know they’re available). And that main bike path does go somewhere useful, it just doesn’t connect to my workplace or the commuter rail station (and getting to that station by bike is unsafe).
So we have a long way to go, but at least the city seems to be making some progress.
This one drives me crazy. Why bother putting a bike rack if you’ve got it hidden? I actually contacted the manager(?) of a plaza after they moved a central bike rack to the side of the building! They moved it back a week later. LOL