I recently stubbled across this flickr photostream called
Bicycle Parking 101. There's many international examples of good and bad bike parking but a lot appear to be from south of the border. It seems we have a lot to learn about bike parking in Sydney where its becoming increasingly difficult to find anywhere to lock up your bike. Today, when I went passed Redfern station I noticed that the "unofficial" bike rack along the handrails had reached maximum capacity. Redfern is the second largest train station in NSW, but you'd be lucky to find a proper bike rack.
Later I went down to Broadway Shopping Centre and I had to struggle to find a place to lock up my bike. Its kind of a nice thing to realise that the bicycle bandwagon is growing, but if it gets any bigger, they'll be nowhere to lock up my bike. We could even see fits of 'bike parking rage'.
There were only 7 spaces at the shopping centre and all of them were all taken. Obviously the planners at the time assumed that 7 would be enough but that didn't stop them from allowing the shopping centre to build a few, say 1550 "first 3 hours free" car parking spaces on the edge of the CBD. Luckly I think I've come across a solution for this dilemma. I suggest that it be written in law that for every 6 bikes sold in Australia, we should remove one car parking space. And if we design them like this, perhaps no one will even notice the difference.
6 into 1, do the sums.
Later I went down to Broadway Shopping Centre and I had to struggle to find a place to lock up my bike. Its kind of a nice thing to realise that the bicycle bandwagon is growing, but if it gets any bigger, they'll be nowhere to lock up my bike. We could even see fits of 'bike parking rage'.
There were only 7 spaces at the shopping centre and all of them were all taken. Obviously the planners at the time assumed that 7 would be enough but that didn't stop them from allowing the shopping centre to build a few, say 1550 "first 3 hours free" car parking spaces on the edge of the CBD. Luckly I think I've come across a solution for this dilemma. I suggest that it be written in law that for every 6 bikes sold in Australia, we should remove one car parking space. And if we design them like this, perhaps no one will even notice the difference.
6 into 1, do the sums.
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5 comments:
I am about to move to Sydney and this doesn't leave with me confidence that there will be a good place to leave my bike.....I might need to get myself a v.cheap townie.
The car shaped bike rack is awesome!
Wow, your moving to Sydney. You must go over an join sydneycyclist.com where there is a strong online community of all things bike related.
Sydney is really a great city for cycling. It just takes a while to find out the best ways to get around.
Hey,
I guess you haven't had any reason to enter the Broadway 'carpark' there is at east 50 square metres of space dedicated to bike parking! There are these funny little things that look like petrol bowsers- I think that's what you chain the bikes to. However, the architects didn't make any provisions for the cyclist mentality of keeping their wheels as close as possible to the entry or exit of the supermarket. There is a psychological difference in the length of walking distance to car and walking distance to a bike.
Cheerio,
Cecelia
Yes, like the car shaped bike rack. With some sized cars, you could get a lot more than 6 bikes, the bikes would also take less room. Oxford has tons of bike racks, but, even in busiest spaces, there is a shortage of proper racks
Thanks for the info Cecelia, I've now found out where the racks are:
http://www.massbug.org.au/cgi-bin/
twiki/bin/view/MASSBUG/BroadwayShop
and thanks for the comments Tejvan. Sounds like Oxford has a bike parking problems that make me envious.
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