Shock, horror Cambridge Railway Cycle parking Dire–lets get people back in their cars ;-)

Wednesday, 14th September: A day in London – means finding somewhere to park my bike in the dratted Cambridge Railway Station Cycle park(s). A car park so bad that it has an on-line Protest on FixMyTransport as I write this it has 159 followers and seems to have the largest group of followers of the 800 odd problems already reported. I won’t hold my breath.

It must be something to do with the economy, however whenever I cycle into the car park it seems to me that there are more and more free car spaces. Perhaps the success of moving more and more people from their cars onto bicycles is exacerbating the problem. Perhaps what we should have instead of the Cambridge Cycle Campaign (CCyC) is the Cambridge Car Campaign (CraP) to free up cycle parking spaces but getting people back into their cars.

According to Cambridge First – “Campaign to improve ‘dire’ cycle parking” there is provision for 333 bicycles, but the aforementioned CCyC survey last year found that there were 1,597 bicycles parked in the station area. It has been a problem for years and by encouraging commuters to cycle helps alleviate the traffic and yet no-one seems to give a toss. Who cares about second-class cyclists eh?

Mind you the problem is not just restricted to the station Cambridge first did a follow – “Your Say: Does Cambridge need more cycle parking?” The answer was yes.

It seems to me that there are more bikes packed into the Cambridge Railway Station cycle parks then even the “Rickshaw Graveyard” in Dhaka the capital of  Bangladesh.

Cycle parking must also be a problem for the Post Office as it is the “Last post for bikes as mail vans take over” in Cambridge.

The good news is that after a recent cull of “abandoned bikes” there are one or two spaces and whilst it is dry you don’t get muddy squeezing along the gaps between the rows of bikes. Here is my bike, with the bike bag on and there is a space to the right and to the front.

You do have to look hard for a space though. I suppose one “benefit” is that with so many bikes to steal the probability of your bike getting stolen is quite small. Which is a good job as you might have to be a do-it-yourself detective if you want to get it back.

You still see a lot of bikes that the owner has been unable to lock to a stand and had to leave it, at least in this case it is locked.

We also seem to have had a few accidents recently with a woman injured near the Milton Arms pub on Milton Road a man seriously hurt in Willingham after falling from his bike. A cyclist has also been assaulted on Jesus Green. Apparently we survey suggested that nearly 30% of drivers send text messages while at the wheel (that is steering wheel not bike wheel). Flip no wonder the EU is calling for “Crash helmets and warning jackets”. Perhaps we’ll soon need ECM (electronic counter measures) to jam text-senders as well soon.

So how come the Dutch don’t find it necessary to wrap themselves in cotton wool eh. For that matter neither do supermodels in New York like Helena Christensen.