A long commute and a LOT of cycle parking

This is the first ever blog post to feature one of Mark Wagenbuur's videos. He later also made guest posts on this blog before beginning his own blog a few years later.


Mark Wagenbuur, who lives in 's-Hertogenbosch sent me this video of his commute from home to his office in Utrecht. It's a distance of around 50 km ( 31 miles ) in each direction. He has tried driving, but this city centre to city centre journey takes over two hours by car. Mark's solution to the commute is similar to that of many Dutch people. He walks to the station, takes a train, and cycles at the far end. This usually takes Mark about 50 minutes

The cycling in this video starts at about 2 minutes in when Mark retrieves his bike from secure cycle parking in Utrecht railway station. After a short ride he parks his bike in the secure parking at his office. This is quite normal. Everything is provided for. Note the communal bicycle pump visible in the parking area.

The video was shot in January and the commute is in darkness at below freezing temperature. Nevertheless, you will see hundreds of other cyclists going about their daily business.

Utrecht is currently planning to build a new cycle park which will accommodate twenty thousand bicycles at the railway station. You can see why this is needed by looking at this second of Mark's videos which shows many thousands of bicycles parked around the station area. These bikes are all in addition to thousands more which are already stored inside secure parking like that which Mark uses:



16th January a bit later. Update with figures...

Mark sent me further email with some figures for the number of cycle parking spaces in Utrecht at the moment. You'll see further down that the total is currently over 14000. Viewed in this light, a new 20000 space cycle park doesn't seem all that extravagant. If there were a few more places, maybe Mark wouldn't have had to wait so long for his space in the indoor park. A little over 40% of all journeys are by bike in Utrecht. It is quite a high figure. Higher than that of any city in any other country, but not quite the highest in this country. Here's Mark's comment:

I tried to get some background figures for you. Since they are usually so telling.

But it was not easy to find out exactly how many bicycle parking spaces there are around Utrecht Central Station! Still, I think we can make an educated guess now.

First this data about Utrecht and inhabitants and commuting

Utrecht is the 4^th largest city in the Netherlands

Number of inhabitants: as of 10-01-2009: 300,000

source http://www.utrecht.nl/300000

Commuters

(Figures from 2003 from:

http://www.fietsberaad.nl/library/repository/bestanden/document000114.pdf)

Number of employees from outside the city who work in Utrecht 122,000

Number of employees from Utrecht who work outside the city 58,500

(page 8)

Number of travelers per day at Utrecht Central station 114,000

(page 9 caption of the last picture)

Bicycle parking facilities / racks

http://utrecht.fietsersbond.nl/documenten/2006/fietsparkerencs.html

From 2006: since then many more outside racks were placed*!

Table 2. Current capacity of the guarded parking facilities around Central Station

	Total number of parking spaces	Number of places for people with season tickets	Number of places for one day parking
NS facility Stationsplein	3.200	2.400	800
NS facility Sypesteynkade	1.500	1.390	110
NS facility Jaarbeursplein	716	444	272
U-stal (city) Stationsplein	1.000	700	300
Total	6.416	4.934	1.482

Table 3. Number of bicycle parking spaces and shortage in 2006 and in 2025 (guarded and unguarded)

	2006		Prognosis 2025
	Unguarded	Guarded	Unguarded	Guarded
Number available	3.431	6.415	8.750	8.750
Number essential with an 85% use	11.098	6.415	17.757	10.264
Shortage	7.667	0	9.007	1.514

* http://utrecht.fietsersbond.nl/home/nieuwsarchief.html

27-11-2007

“The number of parking spaces around Utrecht CS was raised by almost 1,800 places in the past 12 months. In 2008 an estimated 2,500 places will be created.”

(These were all created in outside racks. Even two stories high, as can be seen in my video: from the street they are three racks deep and the one closest to the building is even double layered. Bikes in two layered racks is a rarity outside really… but Utrecht has them).

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Today’s Figures

Total Unguarded Parking spaces

Adding the 2007 figures and expected places for 2008 (which I think were indeed created since I now see racks where there weren’t any before) we come to this:

2006	added in 2007	added in 2008	total
3,431	1,800	2,500	7,731

Total Guarded Parking spaces

no change there since 2006 around the station, new facilities were created by the city but they are for shoppers (as well) so I wouldn't count those.

6,416 (of which 4,934 for season tickets holders and 1,482 for day use.)

I would round both off to:

• Guarded and indoor places circa 8,000
• Unguarded outdoor places circa 6,500.

But maybe you are more precise ;-)

Note: 15 years ago when I tried to get a place in the NS facility (what would "Fietsenstalling" really be in English?) I had to wait 3 months (so I had to buy a month ticket 3x before I could get an annual ticket). Now I have the annual ticket I stick to it and renew it every time since I would have to wait again if I ever loose the rights to that annual ticket!

"Fietsenstalling" in English ? I think we'd just call it cycle-parking. However "stalling" suggests "stabling" (as for horses) and suggests that it is sheltered and that your bike will be protected, as it very often is over here.

A glimpse of another route to work in Utrecht, with a 50 km each way ride, can be found here. Click for many more examples of integrated transport and cycle parking on this blog. We passed through Utrecht on the 2006 Study Tour.