In my experience, there is not enough proper bike parking in Dutch cities to avoid “wild parking”. A space in a bike rack will almost always be preferred to a random pole.
Indeed. Even though there's a lot of bike racks. I feel that we need at least three times more. Also, many people have 2 or 3 bikes parked in different stations and other bikes get abandoned in the parking place. I think they should start checking that bikes are not parked in a spot more than 30 days.
2200 cases in a whole year in a Dutch city of 120000 people seems low. I am almost certain I see more than 2200 cases of car parking violations in a year just personally and I am working home office.
Officials in the Netherlands, a country with more bicycles than people, are tackling a plague of “wild parking” by confiscating illegally stationed bikes and increasing the penalties to get them back.
This year the southern city of Maastricht – beloved of international students – banned people from “orphaning” their bikes by deserting them on the street.
To be legal, cyclists in the inner city must park at a bike rack – securing it to railings or a lamp-post is a no-no.
“But on the other hand, this sometimes brings problems in public space … and this decision is because the number of incorrectly parked bicycles remains too high despite all efforts.”
But Mark Mülders, the head of the GreenLeft local party, is concerned that the penalties could be counterproductive.
“I would rather that they get a fine for incorrectly parking their car than their bike because everyone who cycles has made a contribution to a car-free inner city.”
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Instead of trying to tackle the real issue: "why people park their bikes where they shouldn't?". They decide to tackle the symptom... That's your average politician.
I can see why abandoned bicycles would be a problem. If they put up a notice that they’ll clean up a street from all bicycles in a week, there should be no issue.
I think Sheffield racks are superior from a usability-standpoint, and potentially from an affordability-standpoint as well. They may be worse from a space-efficiency standpoint, however.