Bike park for City Centre

EireRoadUser

A couple of years back I did my best to try and get a bike park in dublin city centre built.
A place where you could cycle to leave your bike ,take your rain gear off and put it in a locker (all in doors.)
Also have imformation for tourists for walk around tours ,cycling and bus tours ,basically a hub of imformation on dublin with screens hung up real high showing different places around Ireland and really selling tourism.

I had plans drawn up for the layout and I even got the go ahead from fas that they would make the racks for holding the bikes.

The guy from fas told me that he had someone with money who thought the idea was brilliant but that I would have to get insurance .
No one would quote for such a project, absolutely no one.

I think personally the one thing that encourages ignorance against cyclists in society it's the lack of facilities for them.
Without a park or building in the city ,cyclists are in a way homeless .

Cycling is the future and everyone knows it, so why isn't there more wealth behind it to encourage it.

It's a shame people feel so unsafe while cycling ,so much so that they never try .Wouldn't it be great to see families on bikes travelling into the city centre , I think it's about time the government actually facilitated the very people who don't burden societies future with pollutants ,the very thing fina fail claims to be trying to resolve.
Just because you don't have to tax your bike ,doesn't mean you have to be treated like the dirt that a road sweeper brushes to one side.

stanbowles

sorry to hear you were not able to get this off the ground ...

... there used to be a great bikeshop in a basement in temple bar (one of the roads off dame street, cannot recall the name of the shop) where you could leave your bike for a small fee (50p or so, if i recall)
but this shop has relocated I guess

there are many different cycle friendly initiatives that could and should be implemented in the city

1/ CCTV-protected cycle parking areas ... will deter most but unfortunately not all the assh@les
2/ bikepark along the lines you were planning
3/ free city bikes (see http://www.bycyklen.dk/english/newsandfacts.aspx for Copenhagen's scheme)

probably lots of other ideas as well

stan

lostexpectation

a nice area with those sails to cover wouldn't be bad...

get yourself a todays times or find the strange story about
jcdeaux limiting the amount of large billboards it puts up in return for exclusive advertising space rights for public loos and bike parks( and the unfortunatly doomed free bike scheme!) they have been given the contract to implement by the dcc.

EireRoadUser

There needs to be a service for cyclists in every city centre .
But I suppose the capital is the best place to start , It's a bit niaive of the government to have the health service in such bad need of repair and not providing a service to people to help them stay healthy.
I'm no athlete ,but have always loved cycling , it's a shame theres nothing to encourage people to pick up a bike and be on their way.

If enough people asked for a decent facility ,I'm sure something would be done.

EireRoadUser

In relation to DCC ,I went to one of their meetings but an old guy who seemed to be running the show ,didn't seem to get what I was trying to say and talked over me .
Their were people who listened to me ,but I feel that DCC has to talk to politicians so much that the politicians have them in circles.

I'm not into politics myself , I do a job and I do it well ,I haven't got time to talk about it.

Victor

There are actually two of the city council car parks that have bicycle facilities, I think Dawson Street and possibly Trinity Street.

EireRoadUser

Cheers victor ,I haven't seen them myself but I think myself what we need is something on it's own . Even something like a 300 or 400 rack with a large perspex roof in O 'Connell street or something. Something that would be cycler friendly and show people they can cycle and pop into shops instead of climbing out of their car and cue at lights.

stanbowles

agree with eireroaduser but one facility southside (near stephens green) and one on northside would be better

victor, re city car parks, can one just bring one's bike in, lock it for free?

whatever the answer, this does prompt a simple reflection ... all the big citycentre car parks could be obliged to set aside space for bikes to park. They already have the security infrastructure, cctv etc, have plenty of space to install racks etc. They already coin it from motorists and could be encouraged to promote the healthier alternative. IF necessary, they could find some nominal charging structure.

any thoughts?

EireRoadUser

theres a guy that goes to DCC meetings and he's also a politician ,I'm not sure what his name is ,hes a tall chap with dark hair.
I think most people like himself would probably use this site for imformation.

I wreckon the government would gain no end with the intergration of cycling into the current facilities in the city centre.