Now here's a nice idea....

Some great news from those lovely people at Transportation Alternatives in New York who report that a "landslide of support just shook Franklin Avenue in Brooklyn, far outsizing the tiny car-parking-space-turned-bike-parking-lot it was endorsing."

A bike corral (a smart idea to swap one car parking space with four bike racks) in Crown Heights got an outpouring of local affection. It all started when a local business, Little Zelda Coffee, saw how many customers were biking in.

In December, with the help of the Department of Transportation and the unanimous support of Community Board 8, a parking spot outside Little Zelda Coffee was transformed into a bike corral, complete with planters and space for the bicycles of eight Franklin Avenue shoppers. Then, a small opposition started to make a lot of noise.

A petition, protesting the lost car parking spot, hit 300 signatures in January. But a counter petition, more than 500 signatures strong, showed up in support of the new bike corral. The community board agreed to revisit the issue. The result, hashed out at a meeting of the transportation committee last week, was unanimous, again, in support of a bike-friendly Franklin Avenue.

From Columbus Avenue to Prospect Park West to Grand Street to Kent Avenue, this is a story that’s been told before. The people of New York City want streets built for bicycling. Now, Franklin Avenue and its little bike corral are added to the growing list of streets double endorsed for being bike-friendly.   If there’s a spot in your neighborhood that could be better for bicycling, you can change it.

The Love Your Bike campaign would love to hear from any local businesses in Greater Manchester that would like to to introduce similar on-street bike parking.

No Place to Park (My Bike)

"Traffic signs. Trees. Wrought iron railings. Chain link fences. Telephone poles. Even a storm drain. I think I've secured my bicycle to just about everything in and around the center city of Manchester; everything, that is, except a bike rack.

....The number of bicyclists on Manchester roads seems to have increased considerably as of late. Whether folks are riding high-end mountain and commuter bikes or Wal-Mart specials, we all face a similar problem: no legitimate place to park. But I would settle for several designated bike racks in visible, highly-trafficked areas, at least in the downtown area. While it would be nice to covered bike parking like they do outside of this train station in Northern Ireland."

Sound familiar ?  Whilst this description of one persons search for decent cycle parking is from Manchester, New Hampshire (see Fortress Manchester) it can be a common problem in many parts of Greater Manchester.

But why are there so few decent cycle parking facilities in Manchester?

Part of the problem is the ludicrously small number of cycle parking spaces that Greater Manchester planning guidance requires building developers to incorporate in new buildings or re-development projects.

According to the Greater Manchester Parking Standards listed in the 2006 Local Transport Plan (LTP2) Technical Guidance (who said we were sad!)

For office building type developments (Type A2: Financial & professional services) the "Minimum standard for cycle parking provision" is 1 cycle parking space per 400 square metres (minimum of2).

Compare this to the requirement adopted by York City Council that demands all plans for new office buildings provide 1 space per 55 square metres. This means that any new buildings in York are required to provide 7 times more cycle parking space than an equivalent office building in Greater Manchester.

To make it worse, it is not even clear whether the Greater Manchester guidelines actually have any actual teeth.  According to a Greater Manchester Local Transport Plan Cycling Group report in April 2002 Greater Manchester Cycle Parking Guidelines the "notes give advice regarding design and numbers of places, and whilst they cannot be enforced yet, form a suitable basis on which to implement facilities."  I am hoping a helpful Council officer can tell me that this lack of enforcement has changed.

Interestingly, the Greater Manchester Police Cycle Parking Design Guidance (Design for Security) released in October 2009 are based on the York Council 'level of parking' requirements and in the "What are Cycle Parking Standards?" section state that:

"These are generally acknowledged by Local Authorities as providing 'best practice'. These standards should be applied to all planning applications by Local Authorities." (emphasis added).

So Greater Manchester Police have adopted and are promoting higher standards for cycle parking than those currently followed by the Greater Manchester local authorities.

With the lack of decent cycle parking being amongst the many barriers to increased cycling levels in Greater Manchester is it any surprise that York achieves commuter cycling levels of between 20-25% compared to the 1-2% in Greater Manchester?

If you want Greater Manchester to build better cycle parking facilities it would be great if you could raise this with your local cycling officer or via your local cycle forum.  See CycleGM for contact details for your local cycling officer.

If you are really keen you could raise the need for better cycle parking standards within planning guidance in a submission to your Councils consultation process on their local development framework.  Check your Council's website for details.


PS It is interesting to see how other cities are responding to the need for better cycle parking facilities.

In July 2008, theNew York Times reported that while "people are generally free to wheel their bikes in and out of residential buildings, commercial buildings often ban them."

But on 7th December 2009, New York Department of Transportation announced that "the City is prepared to implement the Bicycle Access to Office Buildings Law (Local Law 52), which aims to increase bicycle commuting by helping cyclists gain access to secure parking at their office buildings during the workday."

In August 2008, New York Department of Transport also installed nine new bikes racks designed by musician, artist and biking enthusiast Byrne. "These clever and innovative racks were created to generate more interest in cycling in New York and also to add attractive, temporary art the City's streets."  See also David Byrne's Bike Rack site

The trouble with statistics !

A recent article in Tree Hugger celebrated the increase in the number of people cycling in New York City. Based on counts at 6 key NYC locations,  there has been a 26% increase in the number of commuter cyclists in 2009. This comes on top of a 35% increase in cycling levels in 2008. Overall, this represents a 66% increase in the recorded number of people cycling in the last 2 years.

By comparison, a recent report "Cycling as a Mode of Transport in Manchester" to the Communities and Neighbourhoods Overview and Scrutiny Committee announced that "recorded cycling levels into the City Centre have shown an increase of 59% since 2005"

Although this increase was over a longer time period (5 years) than in New York City, and clearly not all the local councillors on the scrutiny committee seemed that enamoured with people on bicycles (in some cases hostile is probably a more accurate description), these increases certainly sound impressive and are to be welcomed.

But as is often the case with headline statistics, it is necessary to dig a little deeper to get a clearer picture.  In the case of Manchester, the percentage increase figure is totally correct but there is no context to what it actually means.

To get some context, you will need to delve into another report - the intriguingly titled "Manchester LPSA2 Modal Share Surveys. Report of Results. GMTU Report 1523  June 2009".  Unfortunately not yet available via the web.

This report gives the modal share data for recorded trips into the City Centre in 2005 and 2009 and reveals that cycling's modal share increased from 0.7% in 2005 to 1.1% in 2009.  Yes, there was a 59% increase in the number of recorded trips made by bicycle, but this represents an increase from a very, very low baseline to a still very low baseline when compared to European cities such as Gronigen and Copenhagen which achieve average figures of 40-45% (or higher) of all trips within the City Centres being made by bicycle.

If Manchester wants to meet its recently announced bold C02 emission reduction targets (1) as well as tackle other key challenges including health (obesity), air quality management (vehicle pollution), congestion and social exclusion then it clearly needs to massively up its game and make Manchester into a cycling city.

(1) "Manchester- A Certain Future. Our co2llective action on climate change"