Monday 16 March 2009

Railway station car and cycle parking

I've written before about the cycle parking at Assen railway station. How it is to grow to 2300 cycle parking spaces this year or enough for one in 28 of the population to leave their bike at the station. This time I'm covering it from a different angle.

There is also car parking the railway station. You can see cars parked at the far end of the cycle park in this photo. They are in a position a bit further from the platform and ticket office than the cycle parking. At present there are 40 car parking spaces at this location and a similar number on the other side of the tracks. There is only room for around one in 800 residents to drive to the station, and 15 of these spaces are being lost this year to make room for more cycle parking spaces.

The car parking is inexpensive to use, though with the limited spaces I suspect that drivers can find it difficult to get a space. It's an example of carrot rather than stick. People are being encouraged to cycle by choice for the sake of convenience, not charged out of their cars.

The bus station is adjacent to the railway station, so it is also convenient to combine bus journeys with train journeys.

You can see a video of walking from the railway platform to the cycle park in the photo here.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Where car parking is free here in Caronto motorholics claim any space they see fit including bicycle parking spaces, bike paths and pedestrian walkways. Unfortunately "the authorities" including police and parking officials don't see fit to enforce no motor vehicle/no parking bans on this behaviour.

David Hembrow said...

I know just what you mean. It seems to have become normal behaviour in those countries with low cycling rates.

I used to live in the UK and school my children went to looked like this twice a day.

Law enforcement is very important to encourage cycling. Without it you end up with a low level of social safety.

Parking on pavements, cycle paths etc. here is quite unusual. It is both socially unacceptable and there is a good level of enforcement.