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Brighton cycle hangar (credit - Brighton Active Travel)NIMBY locals "concerned and distressed" by "giant ugly" bike hangar
Days after Brighton & Hove City Council said it would investigate the placement of a cycle hangar causing outrage with parking permit holders who said it was "deliberately" blocking car spaces, another resident has taken to the local press saying she does not want one of the "giant ugly objects" outside her house.
Janice Goodlet told The Argus she is "concerned and distressed" by a plan to place one of the bike storage facilities — of which the council has provided 60 since July and plans to install 90 more of by the spring, totalling 900 cycle spaces for residents — in front of her house on St Leonards Road in Hove.
Despite saying she is "not against cycle hangars being installed", the resident of the road for nearly 30 years says she is "unhappy" that it is "directly outside" her "lounge and bedroom".
"I am not against cycle hangars being installed on the public highway so cyclists can store their bicycles in a secure location, but I am unhappy with the way the council has decided on its location without any direct consultation with the residents who will be directly affected," she said.
"There are plenty of other locations near me where the cycle hangar would not be directly outside a resident’s lounge and bedroom. It would appear that the negative impact it would have on me and my partner is of no importance.
"I have lived in my house for nearly 30 years and have loved living here, but the thought of having an immovable and large object directly outside my home over which I have no control makes me feel really concerned and distressed."
> 'Crass and insensitive' front page slammed after 'Adolf Hitler' signs bike lane petition
Local councillor Robert Nemeth, who was "surprised" to see his name on the petition linked above considering his opposition to that particular bike lane, said the hangars are a "highly controversial policy" that "has received neither public nor democratic oversight".
"Matters such as planning, access, parking space loss, procurement and the inevitable vandalism have not been properly considered," he said. "I, of course, back Janice in opposing this monstrosity outside her home. These structures should only go outside the homes of those who wish to use them."
Earlier this week Brighton & Hove City Council said it would investigate the location of another hangar in the city after an image of it taking up two permit car parking spaces emerged on social media.
The photo of the Norfolk Square hangar led to accusations of council "incompetence" and the "continuing war against motorists" before the authority confirmed to road.cc it would be "investigating" and was "aware of concerns"
The council was keen to add, however, that it has been "delighted" by the overall response to the new cycle hangars and "residents have wanted them for a long time", something apparent from the demand for available spaces.
"We began with the installation of 20 in July and saw a 100 per cent take-up rate in just a few weeks," Councillor Steve Davis, co-chair of the Environment, Transport and Sustainability Committee explained.
"Since then we have installed 40 more, and all but one of the total of 360 spaces have now been snapped up. This means that 359 residents now have somewhere safe and secure to store their cycles.
"There are also around 300 people on waiting lists for spaces. We are currently looking at more hangar locations. We will have a total of 150 cycle hangars installed by spring of next year – that's 900 cycle spaces in total.
"We know that if we're to get more people travelling actively and sustainably, we have to give them the right infrastructure. Cycle hangars provide people who live in homes with little or no storage space an opportunity to store their bikes safely and securely."
Dan is the road.cc news editor and joined in 2020 having previously written about nearly every other sport under the sun for the Express, and the weird and wonderful world of non-league football for The Non-League Paper. Dan has been at road.cc for four years and mainly writes news and tech articles as well as the occasional feature. He has hopefully kept you entertained on the live blog too.
Never fast enough to take things on the bike too seriously, when he's not working you'll find him exploring the south of England by two wheels at a leisurely weekend pace, or enjoying his favourite Scottish roads when visiting family. Sometimes he'll even load up the bags and ride up the whole way, he's a bit strange like that.
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62 comments
Once you become aware of the space taken by parking, you can’t unsee it.
https://mobile.twitter.com/baoigheallain/status/1590295017968791552
Was thinking exactly that the other day, reminded by rich_cb's example of improved street space / traffic calmed area in Cardiff.
It's certainly the case in Scotland: https://www.edinburghnews.scotsman.com/news/transport/more-third-city-sp...
Picardy Place area in Edinburgh is getting remodelled (tram) so our entry in the link below is out of date - but it's still a massive gyratory for motor vehicles.
https://departmentfortransport.wordpress.com/2013/06/17/football-pitch-j...
Incredible how "but the streets are too narrow" turns out to be the complete opposite of the case - or rather utterly ignoring the large space for the elephants.
My initial reaction to this headline was 'sod em'.. but then I thought about moany old Janice Goodlet who's been in her home for 30 years with nothing but a gradual decline in green space and increase of pollution to worry about and then I thought again yeah sod her.. then I remembered when 'they' (being the bus company) placed a new route bus stop outside of my old house a few years ago, it wasn't the fact there was a bus sat idling outside my house polluting the air I breathed that bothered me the most, but, the placing of that bus stop. If they'd have actually put any thought or consideration into it, they'd have placed it 40 feet up the road, it would have been alongside a green space, would not have blocked a path with people waiting for the bus or obsured visability of a junction and just seemed to make far more sense than pissing off my and my neighbour. I ended up climbing up the lamp post and moving it to that 'more logical place'.. three times as it happens in the end.. no one listened and no one cared. I brought the house without a bus stop there and was glad to see the back of it when I left. I moved to a house with a bus stop about 20 feet from my front wall (expectations managed) and I'm all for it. So an awful lot of waffle to play devils advocate with moany NIMBY Janice Goodlet.. for all we know, like my bus stop there's a better place to put it just a few feet away.. or like suggested, why wouldn't you place it in front of someone who's signed up for the scheme's home? Common sense has got nothing to do with it.
Some people are so hysterical. When I used to instal cycle hangars for a London Borough one of the most common complaints was 'they attract drug dealers'. There was never any evidence and these complaints, though loud, were always a tiny minority. I could never work out why a drug dealer would be attracted to ply his / her trade next to a cycle hangar. I did get a couple of letters from a solicitor who threatened to take me to court. That never materialised either. People get over it - once they see their neighbours using the facility and realise that a cycle hangar will not cause the collapse of the social order and the degradation of the entire neighbourhood.
They'd seen the reports of drug taking by cyclists e.g. Lance, and thought that all cyclists are like that.
They cycle lots in Amsterdam, don't they?
Therefore...
Excellent bonus then, drug dealer bait so the police can just tour the cycle hangars and pick 'em up at will.
That's funny; you know what has genunely increased drug dealing about 50m away from my flat in north London? The installation of a loading bay for delivery mopeds. It has transformed the immediate area from a pleasant green (ish) space, albeit framed by two busy streets, into a seedy epicentre of low-level crime.
We're actually moving because of it (police won't, or perhaps can't, do anything)
Maybe Brighton & Hove could just repurpose broken-down older vans as cycle hangars, thus both sovling the visual aesthetic problem and doing some useful recycling.
The local councillor says: "Matters such as planning, access, parking space loss, procurement and the inevitable vandalism have not been properly considered". Is this an admission that Mr Nemeth hasn't done his job?
I expect the council did consider whether these hangars could be installed. Perhaps Mr Nemeth was absent for those meetings, or perhaps he was merely voted down and has instead taken to whining to local press.
Presumably she would have no objection if a car or van was parked outside her house? So just stick a dummy windscreen and fake delivery company logos on it; problem solved. That said, she does have a point about being consulted, and I'm very surprised that they didn't.
Presumably, local councillor Robert Nemeth only finds bicycle hangars a "monstrosity" and would have no objection to something equally large, like a big van for instance, being parked there instead, and his opposition is definitely nothing to do with the fact that it's for bicycles. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder councillor.
If this was in front of my house I be upset too The value of the house will be affected Now before you go ohh I'm not a cyclist I ride all year round in Canada even have a bike with mudgards on it I own 3 bikes and ride them But the value of my home comes first then someone being able to lock there bike Put it near a buss stop or the corner of road
It's essentially a parked car. Can't park on the corner of a street. 10 metres from a junction, apparently.
Can't park at a bus stop. No BOLAS.
No it not a parked car is not there 24 hours 7 days a week
Oh, I've walked around London - a lot of cars are parked for months on end.
Ah, so it's a question of degree. Given on average cars spend 95% of the time immobile would you be happy if it was only there a bit over 22.5 hours a day? Or if the colour changed occasionally? Being Canadian unless you live downtown I imagine any cars will be at a slight distance from you - are you in one of those areas where building a minimum amount of parking is a rule (or only detached houses?) Notjustbikes - from London, Ontario - has some interesting observations on this subject. eg https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=CCOdQsZa15o
In the UK people can circumvent some building requirements by putting a structure on wheels so it's theoretically movable. If it didn't just encourage the theft I'd suggest this as mitigation here.
What's the difference?
Looking at one of the more moaned about locations on Google, there are all kinds of things in areas that could be claimed to be needed for parking, including communal municipal dustbin units and a derelict looking VW Campavan.
If a car moves from a parking space another will quickly take its place. does it matter if it the same car in the space 24/7 it will be A car of some description
There's a parked car outside my front door 24 hours a day 7 days a week. It's not always the same one, but there's always one there. This is no different.
An individual car, maybe, but a lot of spaces are in high demand and will have a vehicle in them most of the time.
It certainly doesn't look as ugly as row after row of Wheely bins
They seem to be 2.5m long, so it's actually half a parked car.
Need to be installed in pairs for efficiency.
They could be painted to look like DPD vans, those are allowed to park anywhere, apparently.
I applaud the jest... but add that revenue from offering advertising space such as DPD could be pretty profitable.
You could also tag a parcel drop off to them making them even more useful for residents.
There's no evidence at all that bike hangars negatively affect house prices, certainly in my neighbourhood there are more and more being installed and house prices continue to rise. With 50,000+ Londoners wanting a space and more and more people taking up cycle commuting, the availability of bike hangars on a street is, one would imagine, more likely to be a selling point than a deterrent.
What a sad little existence.
Well, if we could extrapolate from the value of houses near cycle paths in the UK, that value is likely to increase, not fall e.g. Bristol-Bath path.
Don't you use punctuation or spelling in Canada?
They solve the parking problem in Canada by having ploughing routes and if you are stupid enough to park in the wrong place, your car gets ploughed.
I think they should get hold of some of the old Russian tanks that really shouldn't be allowed on a battlefield and drive them along cycle lanes and double yellow lines, crushing any parked vehicles in their path.
If there was secure bike parking outside of my house I would consider that a selling point. Presumably you think that on street parking outside a house also has a negative effect on its value?
Not the latter, need to keep those clear for visibility. Put (open access) cycle parking near public transport you say? Genius idea.
http://www.aviewfromthecyclepath.com/2013/09/bus-stop-bike-parking-enorm...
Of course you need even more the bigger the transport hub.
https://bicycledutch.wordpress.com/2021/03/03/new-zwolle-station-bicycle...
"But there is no room for bicycle parking" / "it's not in keeping with our Edwardian neighbourhood" *. Luckily other places had dealt with this one too (sorry folks, we're just not that unique and special):
https://bicycledutch.wordpress.com/2017/10/31/home-side-bicycle-parking/
* Brixton - plagued by trendy cargo bikes since 1910.
The value of a house is only relevant if you are buying or selling.
The rest of the time, it's value is irrelevant.
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