How do you think ideas from other cities might transfer to your city? What do you base those decisions on?
I am glad car parkings are replaced by cyle parkings. In our region covered parkings are constructed especially for bicycles, but that is only in the bigger cities. A kind of a problem for the municipality is that they say for parking a car you pay the municipality, but cycle parkings are generally free, or even cost money. In that way is seems not favourable.
Our village is to small for covered cycle parkings, and there are enough possibilities to park your bike in a safe way (although theft is a big problem).
I would like to show two more exemples of cycle parkings that i like: picture 1 shows a bike dispenser: a penny in the slot machine for bicyle rent, located at two railway stations in my region.
Picture 1: bike dispenser
Another nice instrument is the Velominck (picture 2): you drive in your bike that is taken away and hung into an underground frame. At your return you can pick up your bike again. The big advantage is that you need relatively little space above the ground.
Picture 2: Velominck
Hi,
unfortunately I don't have a good example of cycle parking in my city or in city near by. As you can see on a photos below, in a city center near pedestrian zone, people tie their bikes to a light pole, traffic sign etc.
There are several car parking areas near by, so it could be possible to remove one or two car parking space on each parking lot and replace with bike parking. But there will be a problem with PE "Business Center" and municipality, because you have to pay a fee for car parking, but cycle parking has to be free of charges, or people wouldn't use it.
But it would be nice to install interestingly designed rucks. That can be with some message or just advertisement for the city and cycling.
Jelena
Hi Jelena,
I must say it's very eye-opening to see the difference between Elst and Krusevac! It's clear that an opportunity is being missed in Krusevac to bring more people to the city centre by bicycle.It also seems clear that unless somebody champions the case for more cycle parking, it isn't going to happen on its own. Compared to so many other transport measures, it's really a very simple (and cheap) thing to do but it takes a bit of creativity and a bit of courage and someone to make people aware of the need and of the potential.
With regard to your parking garages, that could be a good oppotunity for you but you need to do it carefully. As noted in the course, it's important that the locations be appropriate and accessible, otherwise people probably won't use them anyway (unless they are leaving their bikes for a longer period) and opponents will call it a waste of money.
On the other hand, if somebody argues that a person in a car pays for a spot and a person on a bike doesn't, you might want to ask how often every single car parking space is full in a garage. I would guess there are always at least a couple of empty spaces, so no money is being lost. Also, when you consider that 10 people on bikes can be accommodated in the space usually reserved for one person in a car (as they argued in Dublin), the business case is quite strong.
Bonnie
Hi Bonnie,
I totally agree with you. The Elst is quite smaller than Kruševac, but regarding the planning of bicycle traffic, much ahead.
We have to do a lot and it's a long term job.
Jelena
Hi Jelena and Bonnie,
It is difficult to compare Krusevac and Elst, because the situation is so different. In the Netherlands almost everyone owns at least 1 bike, so it is part of our daily life. It is a flat country (makes it easier to cycle) and distances are relatively short.
It will be hard to start cycle parking for the few bicycles that are in Kusevac now, but you do not need many parking places in the beginning. Just start at some strategic points and see what happens.
It is interesting to see that the situation that I am used to is not so 'normal' in other countries.
Lots of success and start (or keep) using a bike yourself. It helps to experience the daily problems a cyclist faces.
HI,
Regarding the removal of car spaces, I agree that you can always remove one car from the street and accommodate up to 10 bikes, but you can start by placing bike racks in "lost spots". You always have in a parking lot or parking garage spots where you can't acommodate a car space, but you can place 6 bikes. In my opinion this is the best starting scenario in parking garages. They don't lose any car space, and maybe get some money.
Here they used two car spaces with a quite inadequate model, specially here. It's the nearest parking garage to the Santiago de Compostela Cathedral, the end of The Way, where you have a lot of pilgrims looking for a safe place to lock their bikes with saddlebags. But it's better than nothing, as usual.
Hello,
I think that we can (and should) use every solution that fits in the concrete street or place.
Of course, in general, the bike racks should be on the street and not on the sidewalk. But this is usually very unpopular (due to misinformation in my opinion) and in some cases you can use wide sidewalks (like they do in Madrid). This location also might help the visibility in crossroads, parking exits and pedestrian crosses. Here you can use bike corrals. I'm thinking in suggest that the city use movable bike corrals, so you can move them from (for example) schools surroundings in winter to leisure or sports centres in summer (They also would be very useful at some events).
But, as I said in another post, public parking garages always have spots with no car use where you can accommodate some bike storage (mid to long term). Here you wouldn't replace any car space, at least for the time being.
In shopping streets you can always use the load/unload space to place bikes during day hours. This will need some imagination, but there are several places where it works. Perhaps using the Odense Key solution. I am very interested in this solution since I saw it some years ago in the Copenhaguen Bycicle Parking Manual.
I think it's a very good solution where you have problems with aesthetics (historical buildings, aarchaelogical places, etc). I even have one spot in my mind:
In this street you can find the traditional market place and a lot of other shops. It's the only street with parking spaces in the street inside the Roman Wall, and all the parking spaces you can see till the end of the street are load/unload ones (mostly ilegally used in the photograph by regular cars). We could use some of that space to place bikes during some hours.
You will always have to think location by location.
Hi Jesus,
You make a number of interesting points. First of all, your point about wasted space is a good one. It's not always necessary to "take" space from cars. Sometimes there is space that is not used for anything anyway. Sometimes you want to send a message by reallocating car space to bike space, but sometimes it's just a matter of finding space, in which case your idea is really good. It also allows the one who does it to be seen as "green" by providing services for cyclists.
The Odense key and other forms of space sharing are also interesting ideas. I read about something similar in Copenhagen where parking space could flexibly be shared by bikes and cars. You can read about it in the ELTIS case study here. To be honest, I had thought about it more for places with a much higher mode share for cycling, but it could be an interesting experiment in places with less cycling as well.
Bonnie
There are soo many different ideas that can be chosen from in regards to transferring ideas to my city. The biggest challenge is transferring these ideas to action, especially to the minds of local municipality administrations. Case in point: when shown the standard inverted U to local officials I highlighted the fact that there are already many of these in use to dissuade drivers from parking their cars on curbs or sidewalks. The need was only to have been the installation of signage to those inverted U’s in areas designated for cycle parking. The city’s technicians and planners apparently had an abundance of these on hand because they installed four of these in an area distant from the main entrance to the city administration’s main office, uncovered (while an available covered area was closer to the entrance). The result is an unused cycle parking rack with poor expenditure of pubic funds.
Lobbying for adequate cycle parking as a measure in cycle theft reduction is a good start as this has become a sore spot in the use of bicycles. The need for a mentality change among those chosen to support the public is what is needed in order for any improvement. All the ideas brought to light in this course are valid and can be applied to Cagliari. But public employees who work in the signage department have been appointed as are those responsible for cycle parking without any training or interest in receiving any training. When I recently approached these public servants with an out-stretched hand as a sign of collaboration, I was told to not try to teach them how to do their job. Good thing their director a friend…. Perhaps he'll be able to make some change. Let's hope for the best.
Hi Kevin,
I assume the city employees you were in contact with do not use bikes for transportation? Otherwise they would understand the issues. If you know the director, I wonder if it would be possible to set up a tour of parking facilities with some of the employees to let them test out what is there themselves. I know it can be difficult to challenge people who don't want to listen but sometimes first-hand experience is the best teacher. This can also be interesting if you can find a sympathetic politician who is willing to ride with you. They may be seen as "green" and you could draw attention to the issue. Just a thought.
Bonnie
You're absolutely right. Only one of the public servants appointed to manage the cycling parking rides a bike. This person was appointed (in paper only) to manage the municipality's Bicycle Office. But he hasn't accepted any responibility because this role is not in his contract.
I notice that Bert sent you the same advice to you regarding public servants using the bike. I like to advice for the incentives outlined in the European Mobility Week's "Handbook for Local Campaigners" (page 16 (http://www.mobilityweek.eu/fileadmin/files/Material_2014/Handbook_For_Local_Campaigners.pdf) in particular: "Set up a “parenting” scheme several weeks in advance, involving volunteer civil servants and an experienced bicycle user. The new “cyclist” would cycle to the workplace with his or her “parent” and the pair could then be interviewed about the experience (press release, newsletter, website) during the EMW"..
Kevin