The cathedral of the bicycle: a bicycle parking with 12,500 places

Can you imagine having a bicycle parking with a capacity for more than 12,000 bicycles in the heart of the city centre? It’s real, and an example to follow.

That sustainable mobility is on the lips of many is no news. That more and more measures are being taken for healthier mobility, too. And that there are cities that have been doing their homework and taking the necessary modal change very seriously for quite some time now is also a reality.

This is the case of Utrecht (the Netherlands), one of the most bicycle-intensive cities in Europe. It is estimated that 33,000 cyclists ride through the city every day. Utrecht has just over 330,000 inhabitants. That means that every day 10% of the population takes a bicycle for commuting, be it for work, leisure or to take their children to school on one of the many Cargo Bikes that can be seen in the city.

This fervour for the use of the bicycle would not have been possible without a long-haul project to make the city more and more cyclable: spacious and well-maintained lanes, total connectivity to the whole city, no vehicular traffic on most bike routes… so many aspects have been worked on that anyone visiting Utrecht will think it’s not real.

But of all the infrastructures in which public institutions have invested, the one that most symbolizes this mode of transport in the city is the Stationsplein Bycicle Parking. A bicycle parking space with acapacity to date of 12,500 bicyclesthat can be safely parked in double height bike racks, the same one we have installed in the recently opened CV 15 building in the Valencian Community.

A parking garage that is strategically designed to connect to Utrecht Central Station and which allows citizens to combine bicycle and train routes to areas that are not accessible by bicycle due to the distance. The number of bicycle parking spaces is designed with a clear focus on intermodality.

This cycling cathedral of breathtaking capacity is not only the urban cyclist’s garden of Eden because of the number of bicycles it houses, but also because of the comfort it offers. The bicycle parking is open 24 hours a day, and there is no charge if you leave the bicycle for less than 24 hours. You can check in and check out of the bicycle parking with the same city public transport card, and it also houses up to 1,000 bicycles from Utrecht’s public service, the OV-bicycle.

But if that’s not enough, it’s a cycle parking area. Given its size, we can get in without having to get off the bike, as there are bike lanes inside.

We could go on talking about the wonders of the world’s largest bicycle parking and probably never end. But what we like to show with this bicycle parking is that, what sometimes seems like a utopia to us, can be fulfilled as we had dreamed.

At Mobility by Cycling Friendly we are committed to institutions and companies that make the sustainable mobility that we all dream of come true.