A rail commuter has expressed his frustration at being unable to use a secure double-decker bike parking facility that opened last year at his local station – despite the fact that it is often only half-full.
Antony Harvey commutes from Bishop's Stortford, Hertfordshire, and told road.cc that up until last year, free bike parking was provided and was always “pretty crowded.”
In November, station operator Greater Anglia – the franchise is run by Abellio, the international business of Dutch national rail operator Nederlandse Spoorwegen – opened a new secure parking facility.
Users are required to obtain a fob to gain access, in return for a cash deposit of £25. Antony admits that “I was slow off the mark getting a fob largely because I was going through a period of working from home,” but when he went to the station a week later to obtain a fob, he was told all 200 had been distributed.
A further 30 were subsequently allocated, and Antony is now on a waiting list to obtain his own fob, with no news of when one might become available.
He told us: “I was pretty shocked about this as the facility is never more than two thirds full, usually close to half full,” attaching pictures taken at 11:30am last Friday.
“There is a tiny free bike parking facility but it's always completely rammed, never a space by the time I get there,” he went on. “Also, I want to park in the empty secure spaces I can see. I'm happy to pay!”
He tweeted his local MP, Mark Prisk, who replied: "clearly greater Anglia need to rethink this."
Antony added: “I just think it's really frustrating. Cycling is important for so many reasons as we all know and I feel that as part of a proper integrated transport system we should be encouraging people to cycle rather than drive to train stations.
“The great irony is that the new facility, which is a very good facility, isn't getting the amount of use it deserves,” he concluded.
Last November, Greater Anglia won three categories at the National Cycle Rail Awards, including one for Best Customer Service – with the judges noting the increase in cycle parking at a number of stations on its network, as well as its “customer-focused approach.”
12 thoughts on “Rail commuter can’t use station’s secure bike parking – although it’s half-full”
Sounds like people thought a
Sounds like people thought a £25 refundable deposit wasn’t that much so snaped them all up and there’s no cost if you don’t use the facility.
Maybe if it was £100 refundable or a monthly fee it wouldn’t have been oversubscribed and people who would use it could.
Could it be that other people
Could it be that other people travel and park at different times of the day to him?
someone’s missing a trick
someone’s missing a trick here to create a “rent a bike space for £2 a day” website at the station in question 😀
Perhaps all the fobs got
Perhaps all the fobs got snapped up by gangs of bike-thieves?
Don’t even try to park your
Don’t even try to park your bike at Marylebone station – unless you’re a season ticket holder. There is zero parking provided, and you are advised that there are some public bike racks a couple of streets away. Euston on the other hand has done a great job in providing lots of free racks.
I imagine that people snapped
I imagine that people snapped up the fobs as a “just in case”.
Does the station still have public sheffield stands, or is this new-fangled parking area the only parking there now?
SOMEONE* IN
SOMEONE* IN NOT-QUICK-ENOUGH-FOR-LIMITED-AVAILABILITY SHOCKA!
* who just happens to be a cyclist
truffy wrote:SOMEONE* IN
You seem to have entirely missed the point. Its not about this one individual missing out.
The point is that this particular way of enabling cycle-parking looks as if it might be wasteful in practice. It seems to be failing as a means of efficiently allocating a scarce resource.
I guess this was an alternative to first-come-first-served, because the latter meant cycle commuters can’t be sure of having a space, so might not use the bike at all. But it doesn’t sound as if its working out (needs more rigorous monitoring to be sure).
Seems as if the best way to facilitate cycling to the station is to actually have sufficient spaces to meet demand. Maybe they should try that?
Failing that, I suppose the empty spaces are a sign that the subscription has just been set too low so people are grabbing them with little intention of using them. Its a shame to ration things by price, given some people are richer than others, but its got to be better than just letting spaces go to waste?
It’s happened before, not
It’s happened before, not necessarily involving cycling resources, or people who cycle, or anything remotely to do with push bikes. Make a resource scarce and people will jump on it first, think about whether they really need it later. It’s a knee-jerk reaction, not news.
if it was only one station,
if it was only one station, yeah youd say theyve just underestimated the numbers abit there whats the news, but AGA have done this with every single one their new shiny secure caged bike racks theyve installed. Theyve only issued a fraction of the amount of fobs required to satisfy filling the racks consistently, let alone enough to meet the total demand, which they only had to survey their previous bike racks to measure, so loads of people just end up on seemingly never ending waiting lists.
the worst part is by replacing the provision of the admittedly less secure bike parks with these things, the only alternative to not having a fob, is now literally just leaving your bike locked up to a sheffield rack outside the stations on the streets, one of my friends had her bike vandalised as a result recently as they couldnt break the lock so chose to trash the bike instead, previously it would have been left in reasonably fenced area that station staff at least kept an eye on.
we shouldnt overlook AGA have their own Boris bike system to push,the cynical might say its not in their interests to provide adequate access to storage racks for cyclists as it “drives” numbers towards hiring bikes instead…or at least thats what the bean counters looking at spreadsheets no doubt conclude.
My station have put similar
My station have put similar in place. No problem getting the fobs, but having to pay for what was previously a free facility has really put me off using it.
And as I cycle frequently with my child, I’m told I have to buy two fobs. Chuff that!
And this is why their trains
And this is why their trains are increasingly full of folding bikes falling around and hitting commuters!