Monday, 18 January 2010
Railway station cycle parking in Zutphen and Wageningen
All Dutch railway stations have mass cycle parking. This video from Radio Netherlands Worldwide shows a newer cycle parking facility at Zutphen railway station in contrast with an older one at the station in Wageningen. The new facility is designed to be more comfortable for cyclists to use, as well as more secure against cycle theft.
Wageningen's population is just 36000 but there are thousands of spaces for bikes at the station. Zutphen has a population of just 47000, and over 3000 cycle spaces at the railway station. That's one space for every fifteen residents. In absolute numbers it's actually more than London, a much larger city with 8 million inhabitants which provides spaces for just one in every 2800 residents to park a bicycle at all of its fifty railway stations combined.
Note that the video was made last winter while there was snow on the ground. The cycling rate in the Netherlands only drops about 5% in the winter, so most people were still cycling and the bike racks were still full.
If the bike racks are still full, then just like in London there aren't enough of them provided!
ReplyDeleteI wonder how many more people would cycle if those extra spaces were there?
CorshamJim: You're right, of course. There aren't enough places. That's why a billion euros has been allocated to build extra places at railway stations across the country, but the newspapers still seem skeptical about whether it is enough.
ReplyDelete