Bike Parking

With the depressing news recently that funding has been apparently cut by the NTA for pretty much anything cycle related in Dublin, including the expansion of bike parking in the Drury St. facility, it struck me that there’s no commercial bike parking in town. Of course, the first question has to be, is there any appetite for paid bike parking in town? Or do most people kind of go, nyeh, it’ll be grand? Looking at all the railings and lampposts etc crammed with bikes anytime I walk or cycle in, you have to ask are the commercial carparks missing a trick here? 

Surely the cost per space for a car when divided into say, 6 bikes, would be reasonable enough for the peace of mind knowing your bike was both dry and reasonably safe. For example, it’s 2.70 per hour in Irish life car park for a car park space, so that’s maybe six bike spaces without trying too hard (you could put in double decker bike parking to get higher densities). At that price, it works out to 0.45 cents per hour per bike. Seems reasonable, even if the owners raised that to allow for only 5 bikes per space, that’s still only 0.54 cents per hour. 

So, has nobody thought of this? Or maybe it’s not that simple. Certainly sounds that simple.