Dublin more than doubles cycle parking spaces

In 2015, Dublin City Council undertook a survey which found that there were 4,625 cycle parking spaces in the city centre. In the past few years, the city has made significant progress on increasing cycle parking to keep up with rising demand.

As part of the Handshake project, Dublin has committed to increasing cycle parking in the city by 1,000 stands, thus creating 2,000 new cycle parking spaces each year. The intention of the cycle parking programme is to expand the coverage of cycle parking across the city, in particular to areas that had previously been under-served.

Areas in need of cycle parking are identified based on the demand of members of the public, cycling advocacy groups, city councillors and bike share scheme operators. This broad group of contributors ensures that all locations across the city are considered.

Where possible, cycle parking is added to existing space. This includes converting car parking into cycle parking. The space it takes to park one car can be used to park ten bikes! If it’s not possible to add cycle parking to the street space, the footpath is then considered in areas where the path is wide enough.

Since 2016, 6,054 additional cycle parking spaces have been created through this programme, representing an increase of 130% since the 2015 survey.

Dublin City Council currently monitors new cycle parking spaces to assess occupancy rates once a year. The next step is to create a monitoring tool to help determine the economic value of creating more cycle parking spaces. This would help make the case for increased cycling parking across the city, and demonstrate how valuable it can be for local business.