London’s Hackney Council has pledged to install 4,000 bike parking spaces after Clean Cities Campaign launched a campaign demonstrating the chronic shortage of cycle hangar spaces in the capital.
Clean Cities #ThisIsAwkward campaign with Fare City showed that more than 60,000 people are waiting for a secure cycle hanger space across London.
Added to this Londoners are asked to spend more to park a bicycle in a secure hangar than they are to park polluting cars outside their homes, further embedding car dependency.
The average cost of renting a space in a cycle hangar in London is £55.60 a year, according to Clean Cities. This means a family of four would spend on average £222.40 a year parking four cycles, which is 4.5 times the average cost of parking a petrol car (£50) and seven times an electric car (£29).
Oliver Lord, UK Head of Clean Cities Campaign, told Zag Daily: “We campaigned for more spaces. Hackney Council has committed to ending their waiting list, with 4,000 spaces in the coming years. We campaigned for fairer prices. Ealing Council has since reduced the cost of a space to just 70p a month.”
Since launching the campaign, around 30,000 cycle hangar spaces have been committed to in newly elected borough party manifestos.
Lord added: “Forcing people to do the ‘cycle salsa’ at home when scurrying past their bikes in the corridor isn’t just an inconvenience, it’s utterly unfair given the cheap space set aside for cars on our streets. I’m really proud that our #ThisIsAwkward campaign ignited discussion on this issue and hope these commitments will inspire other authorities up and down the country.”
