Happy Cyclists – Safer Stations

Anyone who runs a railway will know that cyclists are not the easiest customers to please – but, as JOANNE PARR reports, there is an imaginative solution that helps design-out crime on our stations, one which gives cyclists somewhere to store their valuable machines securely… without giving the Bomb Squad palpitations. You don’t need to have two Jaguars to know that there are too many cars on the roads of our major cities – and you don’t need to be a genius to realise that the world would be a cleaner, quieter, and safer place if more people cycled to work instead of driving.

If you’re still not convinced about that, just try to think of the last time you heard of a head-on collision between two bicycles? Exactly! We’ll still need trains, of course, because the sheer time and distance involved in a daily commute from, say, Bristol to London, would render the cyclist pretty useless if he actually made it to work. But millions of us who do let the train take the strain still hop into our cars and clog the roads for what is often a very short journey to the station. 

After you…

         That is a habit that the Government, and the green transport lobby, are trying to ease us out of. But it won’t be easy. Sure, most of us would welcome it if other people gave up their cars and cycled to the station, because that would leave a lot less traffic on the roads for us to contend with – but it would be a different matter entirely if someone tried to take our own cars away and replace them with a nice, shiny bicycle.

Despite this “after you” tendency, more and more people are leaving the car at home and cycling the short distance to school, to work, or to the railway station.         

And the Government, in the shape of John Prescott, is doing everything it can to encourage them, with a series of green transport initiatives and integrated transport policies that aim to make cycling a realistic alternative to the gas-guzzler. One initiative that might tip the balance is the provision of secure cycle parking at stations.

 Just one soggy saddle…

Why? Because anyone noble enough to leave the car at home and cycle to a railway station will not want to step off the train on the way back and find his expensive machine has been stolen, vandalised, dismantled, rained upon, given lamp-post status by the local dog population, or used for target practice by crack squadrons of seagulls.

Just one soggy saddle can get the most willing of would-be cyclists jumping straight back into his car before you could say “Shadow Strategic Rail Authority”…. or even its updated version.

Some well-meaning rail operators (and aren’t they all?) have tried to encourage cyclists by installing rows of simple cycle racks, often known as Sheffield Stands.

They are the most basic form of cycle parking and are ideal for cyclists who just need to pop into the ticket office for a few minutes. They offer no security, so are best installed where cyclists can keep an eye on their machines.

Mad-keen cyclists, rather than those who would rather be in a car but have made the sacrifice for reasons of social conscience, can often be seen carrying a bicycle wheel in the street as a way of preventing anyone stealing their bikes. They also carry chains and padlocks, most of which do little to hinder a determined bike thief.

The dream solution is to park bikes where thieves, vandals, dogs and birds can’t see them or get at them. That’s where the secure cycle is king. They’ve been around for years, but some are so big that a small family could live in them quite comfortably – very nice, but not much use at railway stations where every inch of floorspace is precious – and others merely keep the bike dry so the poor thief doesn’t get a wet backside after breaking into the supposedly-secure lockers.

All that changed two years ago when a Plymouth inventor, Jason Hamlyn, designed BikeAway, a high-security steel locker that cyclists love, thieves hate, and rail operators are ordering by the shedload.

The smallest footprints    

Instead of deciding he knew what other people wanted, Mr Hamlyn adopted the old-fashioned tactic of asking them. First cyclists, then Phil Rosindale, Plymouth City Council’s Senior Highways Officer, and Mike Turner, Transport Development Manager of Sainsbury’s.

The result was a locker that is the strongest, the safest, and the cheapest on the market – as well as having the smallest footprint. That last feature alone caught the attention of Connex, which bought 174 for 19 stations, and Stockport Metropolitan Borough Council, which has installed 57 of them at 10 Stations.

In a joint venture with Gary MacGowan, cycling officer at Kent County Council, Connex looked at every locker on the market before making their choice. The order was won hands-down on the basis of the product being able to offer greater security, ease of use, and the virtue of being able to fit many more into a given space at a fraction of the price.

The Plymouth firm even devised an operator’s pack for each Connex station which made hiring out the lockers a doddle. The packs have now been offered to Stockport MBC, which has already re-ordered the lockers twice. 

So what’s the big issue?

Security is the big issue. And secure storage is a part of that issue. A secure bike provision sends out a clear message – not only to would be thieves, vandals and troublemakers generally – but also to the travelling public. It says this is a safe place to be: safe for cycles – safe for me. It shows that management is taking trouble with the smaller issues and helps reassure people that the same care is being taken with the larger issues affecting their security and safety.

Locked cleanly away and out of sight, the bikes are not only secure themselves but do not attract attention as a possible weapon or tool for troublemakers. A lot of vandalism is opportunistic. Secure storage helps design out crime – stops it while it’s still a gleam in the potential perpetrator’s eye. And when the station is not seen as an easy target then it ceases to be a point of attraction to ne’er do wells and so makes it a safer place for everyone – staff and passengers alike.

A word of approval

The new lockers have caught the attention of Clive Brandon, Railtrack’s head of architecture & design, who sees them as a viable solution for commuter cycle parking at stations. He says they       address all the main concerns of a security-conscious, commercially aware and cycle-friendly rail industry by enabling easy inspection of their contents, taking up so little floorspace, and by offering cyclists somewhere safe to leave all their paraphernalia.

In the event of a security alert, authorised staff can open one of the lockers in seconds – yet a bike thief would find it virtually impossible to break into and would make more noise than the average steel band in the attempt.

“Cycle Lockers are a little different, from a security point of view, to having left-luggage lockers at stations,” said Mr Brandon. “and these lockers provide a good facility because they have room for the bike and your riding gear – which is a great advantage.

 “ You see people leaving bikes and taking their saddles, their pumps, their helmets and their weather gear with them, giving them armfuls of things to carry around all day. Having cycle lockers would solve that – and we could rent them out and still recoup our costs.

 “A lot of stations have cycle parking areas on platforms, but we are trying to move away from that because of gating schemes. To get onto the platform, you have to go through automatic barriers, and taking a bike through is not on….

We wouldn’t want to locate them where people would have to walk miles. That’s one of the areas we’re improving on all the time.

 “ The siting on the station is important. At our bigger stations, every inch of space is at a premium, so a locker with a small footprint is definitely an advantage.”

 Summer 2001 RAILWAY STRATEGIES

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Last modified: March 31, 2004