Park That Bike

Previous posts on this blog have highlighted the need for much better provision of secure cycle parking across Greater Manchester - at both public and private sector locations. See here for the latest blog post or click on the Cycle Parking cloud label.

There are many research reports that highlight the importance of secure cycle parking as one of the factors that will influence people to cycle. 


For example, research published in 1996 (*) highlighted how 63% of respondents listed 'secure cycle parking' as one of the key incentives that would increase their likelihood to cycle. (See Table 3).

Whilst, many companies and organisations have made progress in providing better cycle parking and other cycle infrastructure for their staff - there is still a long way to go for cycle parking facilities in public spaces and for people visiting businesses and organisations and who visit by bicycle.

A recently published report 'Greater Manchester - Cycling Progress Report', (GMTU Report 1637 January 2011 summarises the number of cycle parking locations across Greater Manchester along with a breakdown of the number of locations per local authority. (See Table 20 below).

Am not sure how accurate these figures are - and some Council cycling officers I have spoken too say that they are under-estimates - but clearly some of the local authorities in Greater Manchester have a long way to go in terms of the provision of cycle parking in public spaces.




There are a couple of web-based cycle parking tools that may help to identify where more cycle parking provision is required.

1) Park That Bike offers a website "that enables you to comment on cycle parking in any part of the UK.  People can comment on cycle parking both on-highway, in public spaces, and at key destinations such as railway stations, leisure centres, libraries and surgeries. All comments and suggestions gathered by the site are sent to the relevant local authority."

 

The website explains that ParkThatBike.info is a "free service that enables people to request new or additional cycle parking, or to comment on existing facilities." Users can...

• Identify places where cycle parking is needed
• Report existing cycle parking that is damaged
• Report out-dated and badly designed facilities

 The aim is to...

• Show where there is a clear demand for improved cycle parking
• Help councils develop effective cycle parking programmes that offer good value
• Improve the quality and quantity of cycle parking across the UK

2) Cycle Parking Heat Map - enables visual comparison of bike parking density around the world.

Gregory Williams has created a cycle parking heat map that shows the bicycle parking available around the world. The default map views cycle parking in Canterbury, but you can zoom out to  see a nice comparison between bike parking in your local area and around the world.

If anyone has experience of using these tools for reporting cycle parking requirements in Greater Manchester we would love to hear what sort of response(s) you have received from local councils or companies.

(*) Hopkinson P.; Wardman M. (1996) 'Evaluating the demand for new cycle facilities', Volume 3, Number 4, pp. 241-249(9).