Living Car Free - Being "Cheap" Does Not Promise Freedom From Misuse

Here is a New York Times article on the new French bike rental. It seems that they are not immune to bike theft either:

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/13/world/europe/13paris.html?scp=3&sq=bicycle%20fashion%20photographs&st=cse

“Still, there have been significant problems with traffic congestion and safety, vandalism and theft. At least 3,000 of the bikes have been stolen — nearly 15 percent of the total, and twice original estimates. Some have been seen in Romania or found in shipping containers on their way to Morocco.”

Even in more bike tolerant and public transit using Europe, there is a downside to even a cheap alternative to paying for cars or public transit from misuse.

It doesn't surprise me. The bikes are sufficiently different enough from anything I have seen before to be "desirable" because of their unique design and features. Take them outside of Paris to places like Morocco, and you'd be a celebrity.

There is the difficulty of lack of accountability -- in other words, you don't ever really deal with anyone, just a machine that issues your ticket to ride.

The traffic congestion and safety issues don't surprise me. The behaviour of many of the riders we saw was appalling, and in fact would set back the concept as an acceptable transport option in the eyes of pedestrians, drivers and other more skilled and knowledgeable cyclists.

People always point to Europe and particularly the Netherlands, as cycling nirvana. Often it is not with deteriorating separated facilities, aggressive drivers if you detour off those facilities, and congestion that results in bike parking which makes suburbs look like ghettos.

People always point to Europe and particularly the Netherlands, as cycling nirvana. Often it is not with deteriorating separated facilities, aggressive drivers if you detour off those facilities, and congestion that results in bike parking which makes suburbs look like ghettos.
Too bad the bikes are getting stolen, I see more and more people using the new bike rentals here in DC. My limited experience in using a bike for transportation in the Netherlands was that drivers were very courteous even during rush hour and when (I found out later) I was in the wrong and riding where I shouldn't.
I don't understand the "....bike parking which makes suburbs look like ghettos." part. Is that a negative effect of decent bike transportation infrastructure that DC would need to address as it becomes more bike friendly? How so?

Quite close to the centre of Amsterdam, when I was there in 2003, there were several districts where bikes had totally invaded footpaths and just about any free space where they could be leaned. I think there was one area which might have been a residential area for a university, and it was gross. It was almost like a car wreckers yard... including frames with no wheels locked to posts.

Large volumes of bikes are just like large volumes of cars -- in some circumstance, ugly, and probably more so because cyclists believe they don't have any responsibility to be organised (and please, don't start with the "cars are always ugly" stuff because you're outgunned by several hundred million to one...)

Probably the best examples of organisation were the rail station bike parking stations, often under cover, and so bikes were corralled in one area. It was a clean, civilised arrangement.

On our last trip to France and Belgium, we saw in Strasbourg an example of multi-storey bike parking, which was quite impressive, although we didn't get any pictures.

You see, one of the critical issues that emerges with high-volume bicycle usage is where to store or park the bikes when they aren't being used on errands, shopping, and at commute end.

It's OK when there are one, two or maybe five bikes to accommodate, but when there are 60 or 100 or 200, such as in those Amsterdam ghettos, then on-street, at-will bike parking becomes problematic.

To me, the issues aren't as simple as "must provide bike parking" as a responsibility of the property owner or employer. There is only so much room that can be dedicated on footpaths/sidewalks to dedicated bike parking facilities, such as pipe hoops.

In London, the issues have become serious enough for signs to be erected by property owners on their boundary fences threatening removal of any bike locked to or parked against the fence. The militant cyclists make fun of it... to the property owner, it is a serious issue, and they often call in the local council because they pay rates.

Of course, the matter of security and weather protection are real ones for anyone who values their bikes.

Frankly, from what I have seen, no jurisdiction seems to have coped particularly well with handling the parking/storage of large numbers of bicycles, even in the parts of the Netherlands I have visited.

Attached are two pictures that were taken in 2003 in Belgium, if I rememeber correctly, showing some examples of organised bike parking facilities. They weren't the best that I saw, and I thought I had other pictures... but the my archives say otherwise.

I was there in 1993 and didn't notice. I rented at the train station and cycled around. Haarlem and Muiden was the furthest I ventured but I did ride through the poorer suburbs- I got lost. I've seen photos of the bike parking at train stations around Europe. I noticed the bikes locked to the railings along the canals. I was also there in March with light snow/sleet. The upshot of what you're saying seems to be that as DC promotes cycling they need to organize bike parking. The subways are building covered parking and the city has a bike rack program going. They do the inverted U thing- for free if the adjacent property owner requests it. I've posted here some dumb signs about not locking bikes to railings so the property owners in DC are getting tired of bikes locked to their railings. One thing my fellow bikers do that is particularly rude is lock to the railings on the ADA ramps blocking wheel chair user's access or egress.

Are the bikes being stolen by the paying customers or by the usual bike thiefs? Couldn't they just impose a greater penalty on the credit card holder when a bike isn't returned?

Also 3000+ dollars for one of those bikes? I know government programs suffer from bloat but that's just ridiculous!

Also 3000+ dollars for one of those bikes? I know government programs suffer from bloat but that's just ridiculous!

Remember that these bikes have to serve a multitude of customers and uses. I think they are extremely well designed for what they are. They are not the normal bike as we know it, and I doubt a "normal" bike would survive much more than a month.

Machka has pictures, and hopefully she will post one to illustate this.

Just the locking mechanism, I would imagine, would be quite expensive; the tyres need to be very robust; the fairings not cheap to produce; the frame, the lighting, etc, etc, etc.

While the outcomes may not be totally desirable, largely because of user idiocy, the genesis of this program was way back in the early 2000s.

The City of Paris hosted the Velo-City Conference in 2003, which I attended, and even that was part of a co-ordinated effort to make cycling a more accepted and acceptable form of tansport to ease the city's transport woes.

I can't remember the hire bikes being mentioned specifically at the conference, but there were things like making bus and taxi lanes quasi bike lanes as well (and they work quite well, from what I can tell) that had already occurred. The Parisian city council was very, very keen to learn from the experience of others.

But I don't think any city has been so ambitious with a hire bike program. There was a small one introduced in an English city some years ago with some snazzy looking bikes, but I understand they too suffered from theft problems, and many were fished out of the river than ran through the city.

I was there in 1993 and didn't notice. I rented at the train station and cycled around. Haarlem and Muiden was the furthest I ventured but I did ride through the poorer suburbs- I got lost. I've seen photos of the bike parking at train stations around Europe. I noticed the bikes locked to the railings along the canals. I was also there in March with light snow/sleet. The upshot of what you're saying seems to be that as DC promotes cycling they need to organize bike parking. The subways are building covered parking and the city has a bike rack program going. They do the inverted U thing- for free if the adjacent property owner requests it. I've posted here some dumb signs about not locking bikes to railings so the property owners in DC are getting tired of bikes locked to their railings. One thing my fellow bikers do that is particularly rude is lock to the railings on the ADA ramps blocking wheel chair user's access or egress.

I'm sorry to say this, but one of the most galling aspects of cycling, from an advocate's point of view, is that riders always expect something for nothing because they perceive they are doing the world a favour by riding a bike. Bike parking is no exception.

Bike parking and security seem to me to be critical issues, and there will be a cost attached to them.

After all, if you don't own a motor vehicle, your bike is you sole mode of personal transport (as opposed to public transport). Lose your bike and you lose your mobility.

But cyclists also have an expectation that they can rock up to the front door of their destination and have parking available for them there. Not just somewhere to lean their bikes, but to lock their bikes to.

In my home city, Hobart, there was an effort by the Hobart City Council to provide secure parking in two key car parks. The logic (and I consider it quite sound) was that car parks generally are located centrally to favoured destinations for all people. I am sure there will be militants who jump on that and say that's not true for cyclists, but whatever... the real world of local government doesn't see it the militant way.

Anyway, at one car park, the major one right in the heart of the city, there were bike lockers installed -- two units of two each, so four all up. A rider saw the guy at the ticket pay booth about 10 metres away, he issued a key after payment of a nominal amount (in fact, I think that in line with the motor vehicle parking policy, the first hour was free).

At the second car park, in Salamanca Square, the hub of waterfront restaurant, cafe and arts activity, a bike cage was installed for commuting riders. It had room for around 20 bikes.

Figures from the central car park showed almost no usage at all. For the Salamanca one, I ended up storing my tour and hire business bikes in the cage (for a fee, of course) because over a period of two years after it was installed, only two commuting cyclists made use of the facility. Both lockers and cage were extremely secure. The last I saw, the Salamanca cage was being used to store wheelie bins, and there was some lobbying to remove the central car park lockers.

The council provided inverted-U parking spaces at various locations around the city, and particularly in the central mall (which is a bit different from North American malls, I might add). Frequently, those in the mall were filled to capacity, but simply, where would more be installed there without impeding the access of pedestrians?

Where I live now, bike parking at quite a few suburban railway stations in the form of lockers is provided by the rail operator. A user pays a $50 fee and provides his/her own lock with a spare key for the staitonmaster.

A renewal letter is sent every three months, but there is no renewal fee... a user only has to notify by return mail that s/he is continuing to use the locker.

Which in itself is a weakness, because there are people who possess lockers but rarely if ever use the bikes in them (if they are indeed there!) How do I know this? The lockers were painted, and paint was slapped across most locks... and NONE at the rail station I use the most had been touched several months after the paint job was finished.

What this effectively means is that non-users may take up locker space that could conceivably be used legitimately by another individual but who would now be on a list waiting for a locker to become vacant.

The fact of life is that bike parking takes up real estate, and real estate costs capital money, whether owned by government or privately. Then there are recurring maintenance costs... yes, stainless steel is maintenance-free, until it is run over by a motor vehicle, or vandalised with a hacksaw. And I've seen bicycle parking taken over by the most insidious threat of all, motor cycles.

I think the bike parking in Europe, especially the multi-storey cages, are paid for by the user.

I suspect that if you are promoting cycling, gwd, you will need to identify the parking issues early on and try to get people to understand that for total security (such as a cage with access card access only), cyclists may have to give up convenience to park right outside their destination. And they will have to pay for that security.

I don't think many employers are going to entertain the idea of people taking bikes to their desks, especially if there is a surge of such requests. Bikes are, in my experience (and I could take mine into my office at my last desk job) not very office friendly, including going up stairs or elevators, and being parked out of harm's way.

One employer in Hobart, Aurora Energy, set up an arrangement in their basement that a very concentrated parking arrangement -- I think there were more than 50 bikes there when I saw it, and the room would not have been more than 8 or 10 metres long (up to 30'). The point is, they were out of the elements, in a secure location because users needed an issued passcode for the door lock, and there were few risks of damage.

Long answer, I know. But I hope it helps set out some of the issues that serious cycling advocates need to account for in real world negotiations with various stakeholders.

Excuse the third posting, but it's probably better to break this up a bit.

When Machka and I were in Jasper in August, I was quite impressed with how some of its bike parking was handled. Basically, a parking space for a motor vehicle was taken over and racks installed. I think there was some street furniture put in place to prevent motor vehicles in adjacent parking spots encroaching, but my memory might be wrong there.

Jasper is quite a bicycle-aware town. It's not a big town, but there is a very healthy MTB community there, along with cruiser riders (and despite all this, I don't recall seeing one bike lane!).

The on-street bike parking wasn't the only form present -- there were the usual racks on the footpaths, too. But the on-street arrangement meant the poor relations in all this -- pedestrians -- weren't inconvenienced, too.

One of the critical issues when it comes to such arrangements is the perception -- sometimes backed up by trading figures -- that removal of a car-parking space in front of or near a shop will result in a decline in business.

Taking over on-street car parking is one solution... but it does have weaknesses in weather protection and security, and there has to be some acceptance from both the local authority/road owner and motorists.

DC seems to be trying many options. For parking they also have free bike parking in the car garages downtown in addition to the inverted U's out on the sidewalk. Usually the parking is near the attendant. The subway keeps putting in more and better bike parking. The buses now have racks. There are several bus 'n bike lanes downtown. It did seem like I was getting away with something when I first went car free. Wow! no hassle parking right near the door! No hassle with the DMV! Going to work is fun! Money in the bank!

Quite close to the centre of Amsterdam, when I was there in 2003, there were several districts where bikes had totally invaded footpaths and just about any free space where they could be leaned. I think there was one area which might have been a residential area for a university, and it was gross. It was almost like a car wreckers yard... including frames with no wheels locked to posts.

Large volumes of bikes are just like large volumes of cars -- in some circumstance, ugly, and probably more so because cyclists believe they don't have any responsibility to be organised (and please, don't start with the "cars are always ugly" stuff because you're outgunned by several hundred million to one...)

Probably the best examples of organisation were the rail station bike parking stations, often under cover, and so bikes were corralled in one area. It was a clean, civilised arrangement.

On our last trip to France and Belgium, we saw in Strasbourg an example of multi-storey bike parking, which was quite impressive, although we didn't get any pictures.

You see, one of the critical issues that emerges with high-volume bicycle usage is where to store or park the bikes when they aren't being used on errands, shopping, and at commute end.

It's OK when there are one, two or maybe five bikes to accommodate, but when there are 60 or 100 or 200, such as in those Amsterdam ghettos, then on-street, at-will bike parking becomes problematic.

To me, the issues aren't as simple as "must provide bike parking" as a responsibility of the property owner or employer. There is only so much room that can be dedicated on footpaths/sidewalks to dedicated bike parking facilities, such as pipe hoops.

In London, the issues have become serious enough for signs to be erected by property owners on their boundary fences threatening removal of any bike locked to or parked against the fence. The militant cyclists make fun of it... to the property owner, it is a serious issue, and they often call in the local council because they pay rates.

Of course, the matter of security and weather protection are real ones for anyone who values their bikes.

Frankly, from what I have seen, no jurisdiction seems to have coped particularly well with handling the parking/storage of large numbers of bicycles, even in the parts of the Netherlands I have visited.

Attached are two pictures that were taken in 2003 in Belgium, if I rememeber correctly, showing some examples of organized bike parking facilities. They weren't the best that I saw, and I thought I had other pictures... but the my archives say otherwise.

I prefer bicycle parking areas where people use them to park bikes: might be less orderly but are far more functional.


I find your complaints rather peculiar about too many bicycles and the associated parking situation being offensive to your esoteric sensibility. Of course you claim that you are one of the select people who properly "values" a bicycle, not like the disorderly unorganized riff raff who park their allegedly lowly valued bikes helter-skelter in Amsterdam NL, Leiden NL, Hockenheim GE, Heidelberg, GE or at the middle school close to my current house. Personally I found and find these parking arrangements quite pleasing to the eye. Nor do I mind or find it difficult to walk around bicycles locked to poles and fences on the sidewalk; you Rowan, are the ONLY bicyclist I ever heard of with that complaint.

I prefer bicycle parking areas where people use them to park bikes: might be less orderly but are far more functional.

My old home town of Philadelphia with more of that disorganized outdoor parking that so offends at least one poster's sensibilities. I guess none of the owners of these bikes value their transportation like some of our BF car-free members do.

On our last trip to France and Belgium, we saw in Strasbourg an example of multi-storey bike parking, which was quite impressive, although we didn't get any pictures.



Yes, we did. :)

They're here on the my website: http://www.machka.net/pbp2007/2007_Post-PBP_3.htm
.

Remember that these bikes have to serve a multitude of customers and uses. I think they are extremely well designed for what they are. They are not the normal bike as we know it, and I doubt a "normal" bike would survive much more than a month.

Machka has pictures, and hopefully she will post one to illustate this.

Just the locking mechanism, I would imagine, would be quite expensive; the tyres need to be very robust; the fairings not cheap to produce; the frame, the lighting, etc, etc, etc.



Here you go ...

Also on my website here: http://www.machka.net/pbp2007/2007_Pre-PBP_3.htm

.