"Unrealistic" cycling targets and "great swathes of unused cycle parking" holding back new London developments, property association claims

On the subject of cycle parking, I'm currently talking with a local parish council which has a Centre: with no cycle parking.  Not only no cycle parking, but a notice prohibiting cycling in the car park.

The reason given for not having cycle parking is that no-one cycles there: I wonder why?

The reason given for banning cycling is that kids used to ride around the car park, doing wheelies etc, so they might injure someone: but cars are fine.

The village I live in has a very nice community centre, with a nice big car park: no cycle parking.  Our District Council recently gave grants for Active Travel, so I asked them to apply for one for cycle parking: couldn't be done because they'd lose a parking space.

There are days when I doubt not only my own sanity, but everybody's.

Quote:

The CPA told the press each cycling space produced 1.29 tonnes of carbon and the total impact of 2040 targets would be 21,500 tonnes

Sounds massive, doesn't it, but whilst we should obviously be aiming for as little carbon release as possible that's the equivalent of what approximately 4200 average cars produce in a year, in a country with more than 30 million of the things. Of course that figure doesn't tell the whole story because once the cycle spaces are built they become more or less carbon neutral over their lifetime (obviously a certain amount of lighting et cetera is required). Most modern skyscrapers, as I understand it, are built to last at least a century, so the carbon cost of providing all of those 16,600 new cycle spaces will be, per year, the equivalent of about 42 cars. Which doesn't sound that big a deal, really.

*All of this assumes, of course, that the developer figures of 1.29 tonnes of CO2 per cycle space are accurate, they sound to me like a gross overexaggeration based on the total floorspace of the building divided by the notional square meterage of a bike space as if they had their own floor built specially; as qwerty360 points out below, bike storage can often be incorporated into spare space, e.g. boiler room access, that would otherwise lie empty anyway.

"64% live further than 10km from the office". This ignores those who, like me, live further than 10km away but still arrive by bike, having got the train most of the way and cycled the rest. And I'm not the only one, judging by the number of folding bikes on the train in rush hour.

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As someone who deals with property developers on a regular basis, them complaining about the unfairness and unreasonableness of anything that might very marginally impact on their profit margins is their default approach.

They'll make a string of baseless, but sympathetic sounding claims to prop up their argument, putting the onus on the regulators to demonstrate they are wrong, and hoping that somewhere along the line that some of it sticks and concessions will be made. 

Dan Alexander wrote:

The CPA had said that the cycle parking policy is based on an "unrealistic" estimation that one in five City workers cycle to the office, something the LCC notes has already almost been achieved in Hackney. The property association also claimed its research suggested 86 per cent of cycle bays in new City developments were unused and 64 per cent of workers live further than 10km from the office ("too far away" to cycle, the CPA says) and are more likely to use public transport.

Seems CPA is asserting quite a lot of truisms without any real evidence and without allowing room for growth.

• an "unrealistic" estimation of cycling ratios that LCC says is almost met
• 86%  of cycle bays may or may not be unused, but if that is existing capacity, I would like them to provide a breakdown of that capacity. I have seen a lot of poorly implemented cycling space, such that capacity is almost impossible to reach because cycle spaces are too close to each other, old style butterfly 'wheel-benders', full of junk or storage, or just not secure enough
• 64% or workers live beyond 10km... so more than a third live within a cyclable distance
• 10km is too far to cycle ... that's an unfounded claim of an arbitrary distance that is perfectly easily cyclable... of the remaining two thirds, many could, in fact, easily cycle more than 10km with some experience.
• they may use public tranpsort; they may also alternate between cycling and public transport, with the knowledge that each mode is there to compensate for a breakdown in the other

Failure of workplaces to provide for and activley encourage active and public modes of transport represents a failure to reduce car dominance, which is the real cost of carbon costs. As for capital costs, cycle provision is a really flexible option. It can be used for other purposes in a controlled manner while provision is underused - or, as the article says, rented to neighbouring properties who cannot make appropriate provision. If you can't make that stack up financially, perhaps the property development market isn't the right place for you.

Since Covid, bike parking in my office has been like a war zone - good way to get people in the office early - no-one to park your bike if you aren't!

We are by no means and "old office" - the main building was finished in 2017, but cycling provision isn't even close to meeting demand (both bike storage, lockers, showers etc.)

"He said there are "great swathes of unused cycle parking" across buildings' basements across the City."

I'm not sure what else the CPA would like to put in the basement instead as the options are limited. Car parking now sensibly is very restricted, gyms need quite a bit of extra facilities, and a few have a conference centre.

Older office buildings in the city tend to have rubbish cycle spaces tucked away in poor locations that are often full, newer ones have larger better located ones that still well used.

"64 per cent of workers live further than 10km from the office ("too far away" to cycle, the CPA says) and are more likely to use public transport"

As someone who cycles over 22KM to work on some days, I'd day there are plenty of people coming in from over 10Km looking at the cycle bays in my city office.

This is a novel approach to getting out of providing cycle storage. - Blame cycle parking for CO2.

I've worked in places where it's underused and in places where it's overused. Quality is the biggest factor.

People need to have high quality options available to store their bikes - If you put something bad in 'because you have to' it won't get used. 

The big issue with parking isn't 1 in 5 office workers cycling to the office.

Its 1 in 5 office workers cycling to the office on a summers day when the tube is on strike...

(Would also note that apparently the bike racks at my office at work are in a very wide basement corridor; With a machine room (big boilers presumably) at one end and service elevator at the other. I wonder how likely it is that its so wide because that lets them manouvre large boilers etc down it once every 20-30 years (even if they have to temporarily remove the bike racks to do so).

IMHO the solution is tell businesses if they don't have the right ratio of bicycle racks then any employee who cycles in to full racks can take the day off...