We learned a few months ago that AT were about to trial some cycle cages at a few rail stations and if successful roll out the scheme to the rest of the rail network. Now the first cages at Papakura, Papatoetoe and also at the Birkenhead Ferry Terminal have gone into operation and if you live in the area, you can register to use them here.
New bike parking facilities have opened at two train stations and a ferry terminal.
Auckland Transport is trialling enclosed, covered bike parking at Papakura and Papatoetoe train stations and Birkenhead ferry terminal.
The parks at the train stations hold 20 bikes while the one at the Birkenhead ferry terminal can store 30 bikes. All three parks offer a choice of standing racks and hanging bike parking.
Auckland Transport’s Manager of Community Transport, Matthew Rednall, says “We want to encourage people to leave their car at home and get on their bike to connect with the train or the ferry. It’s a chance to get fit and takes another vehicle off the road.”
The bike parks are covered by CCTV cameras and, to add to security, access is by a proximity card which is issued after registering on-line.
The parks at the rail stations also have bike repair stands for small jobs like fixing punctures.
Cycle Action Auckland Chair, Barbara Cuthbert, says “Bike parking has moved into a new age with these superb facilities – they even have a bike pump as part of the installation. Secure, undercover bike parking will allow more of us to cycle to the train or ferry, and have peace of mind out bike will be ready and waiting at the end of the day.”
Access to the bike parks is on a six-monthly basis, you will be contacted before your registration runs out in time to renew or cancel it.
For more information and to register go to: http://www.aucklandtransport.govt.nz/moving-around/biking-cycleways/cycling-and-public-transport/Pages/default.aspx
Here are some pics of what they look like.
This is a good initiative and hopefully is successful and rolled out to all train and bus stations as well as ferry terminals. Many stations have woeful options for storing bikes yet can have a heap of carparks, like my local station at Sturges Rd below where there are 170 car parks but only a few exposed hoops to tie bikes up to. It’s no surprise that they are never used.
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Saw comment from AT yesterday on this and they are hoping to link to Hop cards in the future but not at this trail. So close to having a smart card to do it all…
Using the Hop Card… well, that would work easily for payment, not so sure about the security side. There’s no real checking who registers what hop card, no ID scheme etc…
Surely if you have a registered hop card, with a valid credit card behind it, it could be added to the card like a monthly pass for trains or buses for instance? It would just be an option on cards that have been validated to what ever set of rules AT come up with?
Not convinced of the hanging hooks. Otherwise this is great, and when can I have one at my station?
@Max, I’m guessing that they will ask for additional ID when you register for the scheme, Its not a simply ride up unannounced and park, you will have to have already registered before you could use your HOP card to open the door.
Certainly a good improvement. However I am curious how much these cost? Anybody know?
I’m guessing less than the cost of 20 carparks 😉
Any hard numbers Matt?
Cycle Action was told that the costs are about $80k NZ.
I believe this is somewhat down from some Oz examples costing $110k AU, though I also believe their cages were slightly larger.
[And before anyone explodes at the “massive” costs, remember that tarmac for a car park may indeed be cheap. The LAND for car parks isn’t. 20 car parks = 500 sqm of land, once the immediate manoeuvring aisle is included. This cage is about, what? 40 sqm?]
Thanks Max. $80k is pretty reasonable. I asked because many of these mini-projects seem to cost a heck of a lot more than they should (cough Hop). Anyway hopefully this turns about to be successful and can get more than 20 carloads of people. 🙂
Hi Frank – one of our key worries is actually that the roads around train stations are often too hostile to get many people to cycle there. It’s a multi-headed problem…
The park n ride extention at Albany cost $10k per space, and I believe that was on land already paid for. That makes these bike sheds about a quarter the price per passenger served.
Nick, even if the land is paid for I still think the total price to provide park’n’ride spaces should be accounted. That is, if not being used for parking, could it be used to create income?
I just did some rough calcs for Albany. Using rates info for land value and news articles to get rough construction estimates, my estimate is that each carpark in the Albany Park’n’ride is valued at $20K (excludes actual bus interchange).
I also fail to see how each cage can cost $80K. Someone is clipping the ticket big time.
There actual cages probably cost $20,000 to build, you would be amazed how much that sort of stuff costs, then there is transport of the cage, laying a base and mounting the thing. Probably a weeks work for 3 men and a company vehicle means you are looking at minimum $12,000 labour, and probably minimum $3,000 transport. Plus any other construction materials, concrete our will be a few thousand again. It adds up, $80k installed is not bad.
Or in other words, to buy the land to build 20 car parks in an inner-city location near a train station would be the equivalent of one good-sized house & garden, or anything from $400k to 1 million.
Are they still going to have other options where you don’t have to register, or will this replace existing hoops entirely?
My question too Luke. Hopefully there will also be a lot of staple hoops for casual cyclists near the cage.
taking the busway stations as an example, there are both cages and hoops
The intention would be for there to always be “free” cycle parking too. I haven’t heard anything from AT to the contrary.
Great idea, and hopefully will be a success and rolled out elsewhere. Are these in addition to any bike parking at present, or a replacement?
These look great, and it appears in conjuntion with traffic seperated bike lanes on Beach Road that someone in Auckland Transport is thinking beyond the providing roads for cars.
I hope this person does well.
I’m sure this trail will be a success. Five of these cages supporting 100 bikes will be great throughout the network – think of the space 100 cars take up.
Let’s put these at every station in the network.
Really.
Excellent initiative. Also looking forward to seeing this at other stations. Maybe some of them will also have cycle racking that is actually easy to lock a bike to (i.e. through rack, bike frame and both wheels) without the bike falling over/chipping paint etc. The round-hoop-on-a-stick racks are the worst culprit for this.
The bike cage doors were removed earlier this year and now I have had a second bike stolen during daylight hours. The reason for removing the door was never made known and should be revisited. I do not know how may other people have lost bikes and have suffered the inconvenience and expense of such an ordeal.