Is this our new bike stand?

graeme_s-2

I've been asking my employer for a bike stand outside my building since I started work here. One of my former colleagues had been asking since we moved into this building in 2000.

I was finally told that we'd be getting a covered stand at each end of the building by the end of the last term. Still no sign now I'm back after an extended Easter break... or so I thought. At one end of the building this pile of bits has appeared:



So is it a covered cycle stand, or something else entirely? It is on a site that I would expect them to use for one of the stands, but it doesn't seem to have any Sheffield stand-style hoops. Could it just be the shelter, and the Sheffield stands are to follow?

mrchrispy

it'll be for the smokers

Bassjunkieuk

If it has metals poles and is anchored to the floor I'd use it! Admittedly a covered stand is best as it keeps the bike a bit more protected from the rain, but as I work in and around London I usually just have to make do with the nearest immovable anchor point to where I'm working! Sometimes the sites have underground or secured bike parking which is nice, but other times it's just a fence round the side of the building.

I do think it should be a legal requirement to supply bike parking for every workplace (could be tricky in towns given the denseness of office's) as it's becoming the norm now for offices on industrial parks and even some larger office blocks in towns and cities to have car parking spaces for the staff and I don't see what cyclist should be penalized for they chosen form of transport. After all aren't we meant to be encouraging healthier, more environmentally friendly means of commuting?

Belv

Chain your bike to it as it is! Someone might take the hint then? (although after 8 years of asking, maybe not).

Bassjunkieuk wrote:

I do think it should be a legal requirement to supply bike parking for every workplace (could be tricky in towns given the denseness of office's) as it's becoming the norm now for offices on industrial parks and even some larger office blocks in towns and cities to have car parking spaces for the staff and I don't see what cyclist should be penalized for they chosen form of transport. After all aren't we meant to be encouraging healthier, more environmentally friendly means of commuting?

No, no, no, no, no!
It's suggestions like this that alienate cyclists from the rest of the world. Something conditional like workspaces over a certain size or with x number of employees perhaps but to make a blanket law like that will reduce the popularity and image of cycle commuting.

nwallace

Belv wrote:

No, no, no, no, no!

More to the point,
Totally impossible in some locations.
(Did you know any form of commercial (including privatley owned) vehicle is a work place thus Scotlands no-smoking law and requirement for stickering extends to a van wholly used for private transport. A compulsory bike stand would be a bit of a problem for Mr Everest van driver.)
Utterly inconvenient, unworkable or beyond limits for some companies
There is no compulsion to provide parking for any form of vehicle.
There is no compulsion to provide facilities for "freshening up"

graeme_s-2

This is our current cycle parking provision:


(that's my fixie in the foreground 8))

To be fair a huge number of the other buildings on campus have good cycle parking, but for some reason they've dragged their heels about providing cycle parking for the business school. The University has a policy of providing cycle parking for all new buildings, but that wasn't in place when they built the business school. Since then they've extended the building twice, but apparently the policy doesn't cover extensions, even though the total extension is bigger than the original building :roll:

Was on a training course today, so I haven't been able to check on the pole progress, and the University's environmental officer hasn't replied to me yet, so I am still in suspense.

dirk_van_gently

I am not a gambling man, but I would put money, that your shelter is for smokers, not bikes.
Of course if it is a bike shelter, than even more money on smokers using it.
So either way I win

graeme_s-2

The smokers already have an overhang that they huddle under. Although I think there have been some complaints about their smoke drifting into one of the lecture theatres through the fire exit

graeme_s-2

There are men outside digging holes where the paving slabs used to be, and I have had it confirmed that it is a cycle stand