— Around 280 spaces will be available split between two car parks.
Dublin city centre’s northside is to get two indoor bicycle parking units, following a similar unit opening on the southside over a decade ago.
The unit on southside is in the Drury Street Car Park (pictured below), west of Grafton Street. The bicycle parking in that Dublin City Council-owned car park was opened in 2009 and then upgraded to a capacity of 332 bicycles in 2018.
The two units to be opened on the northside are to be in the street-level Jervis Car Park, which is between the quays and the Luas tracks on Jervis Street, and the Q-Park The Spire car park (main picture above).
The Jervis Car Park is between the quays and the Luas tracks on Jervis Street (not to be confused with the Jervis Shopping Centre car park). It will have 52 Sheffield stands which should allow for space for 104 bicycles and 2 accessible/cargo bike stands which should allow for parking 4 large bicycles.
While the Q-Park The Spire car park is accessed via Cathal Brugha Street, about 170 metres from O’Connell Street. This will have 70 Sheffield stands which should allow for space for 140 bicycles and 2 accessible/cargo bike stands which should allow for space for 4 larger bicycles.
The spaces are free for users while the council will pay a fee to car parks for the use of the space.
One Twitter user said that the bicycle parking at the Sprie Car Park (referred to as Clery’s) is accessible today, but it may not be officially open yet. Dublin City Council said that the Spire Car Park would open at the end of November while the Jervis Street unit would be open by the end of October.
Speaking to IrishCycle.com, Cllr Donna Cooney (Green Party) said: “It’s a start and I’m delighted that there’s now some in-door bicycle parking on the northside finally. Dublin City Council has done a really great job on Drury Street.”
“I wrote to him after a trip to Amsterdam saying that if we’re going to get more people cycling into the city centre we really need to have indoor cycle parking,” she said.
Cllr Cooney said that the number of bicycle parking needed means that indoor units are needed even if all on-street car parking was converted to bicycle parking.
She said: “In Amsterdam, the in-door bicycle parking are like bicycle hotels… They already have the problem of success that street space is at a premium.”
“I’d had some many requests for indoor bicycle parking. Some people don’t even cycle into the city because they go ‘I won’t bring my bicycle into town because I think it will get robbed’,” said Cllr Cooney.
She added that the council will need to work with the National Transport Authority on larger bicycle parking units including at train stations.
Large scale bicycle parking units have been common at train stations in the Netherlands for decades — in many cities, these are being expanded to cope with increasing numbers of people cycling. In recent years, more of a focus has been on bicycle parking units in city centres for shoppers, diners and workers. The City of Utrecht just last week opened a unit under a refurbished building with space for 900 bicycles:
https://twitter.com/GemeenteUtrecht/status/1448994284250800129?s=20
Commenting on the spaces planned in Dublin, a spokesperson for Dublin City Council said: “Dublin City Council, are working in partnership with two car park providers to provide indoor cycle parking in two Northside facilities.”
The council gave the following details:
Facility | Location | No. of Stands | Expected opening date |
Jervis Street Car park – APCOA | 61-66 Jervis Street | 52 Sheffield Stands
2 accessible/cargo bike stands |
End of October, 2021 |
Spire Car Park | Cathal Brugha Street | 70 Sheffield Stands
2 accessible/cargo bike stands |
End of November, 2021 |
The Dublin City Centre Cycle Parking Strategy Report (PDF), which was published in 2015, outlined how more off-street high-density bicycle parking was needed. But little progress has happened between the upgrade of the Drury Street bicycle parking and now.
Dublin City Council owns the Ilac Car Park which has 1,000 car parking spaces, but vehicular access to the car park is only via steep ramps and non-vehicular access is via lifts inside the Ilac shopping centre, so, it would be costly and require major works to provide convenient bicycle access.