Dublin City Council’s upgraded cycle parking unit on the ground floor of the Drury Street Car Park was opened by Lord Mayor Mícheál Mac Donncha this morning.
The council said that the expanded facility, which was funded with the support of the National Transport Authority, has a capacity for 332 bicycles, almost twice the capacity of the original facility that opened in the car park in 2009.
The upgrade also included better lighting, CCTV security cameras, a public bicycle maintenance area with basic tools, and parking spaces for cargo bicycles.
The bicycle parking is free to use and open to the public from Monday to Thursday from 7am to midnight, Friday, 7am to 1am, Saturdays, 8am to 1am and Sundays 10am to 7pm.
Lord Mayor Mícheál Mc Donncha said: “I’m delighted to open this excellent cycling facility and I am confident that it will encourage many more people to cycle into this part of the city, in the knowledge that there is a safe, secure location to park their bicycles.”
Brendan O’Brien, head of technical services, Dublin City Council said: “This new facility meets a clear demand for safe, secure cycle parking. It shows what can be done in a multi-storey car park. We would welcome other car park operators approaching Dublin City Council with proposals on how they could provide similar facilities.”
A council statement added: “Dublin City Council is already looking at other facilities that are suitable for providing such parking and they hope to develop more facilities to compliment this one in the near future. This will compliment the ongoing on-street cycle parking programme that has already provided over 1,300 spaces this year.”
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All well and good, but in any properly run European city, an area like Drury Street and surrounds would be pedestrian and bicycle only (with permits for residents and early morning deliveries) and there would be plenty of on-street options for bike parking. Instead we have a constant stream of cars going in and out of Drury street and BT parking, or just circling around looking for non-existant on-street parking. But of course doing that would mean closing car parking facilities, and this will happen at some point. Is this an effort to hold off the inevitable?