Plan for Dublin city multi storey car parks to be used for bicycles

Some of the city centre’s multi storey car parks may be hosting bicycles soon if new plans are given the green light.

Green Party Dublin City Councillors say they welcome the news that the council are in negotiations with several multi-storey car parks with a view to creating indoor cycle parking.

Councillor Donna Cooney, who wrote to the Dublin City Council CEO in May 2020 to request the council look at this as a solution for secure bicycle parking,whilst freeing up much needed on street space for Covid-19 physical distancing.

‘After attending the BYCS European Bicycle Mayor Summit in Amsterdam in February and seeing their excellent cycling parking infrastructure, it seemed to bethe obvious solution to integrated transport’ Councillor Cooney said.

The letter to Owen Keegan titled Re-imagining new use for Multi-Storey Car Parking stated:

“We will not have the room for all bicycle racks required on streets with the predicted increase in cycling, as we need that space for walkers and physical distancing.

“Therefore we need to look at other ways to adapt and provide parking for all the bicycles we will have in our city.

“Could we seek support for a really great project for Dublin City Council, to look as designs to re-imagine a multi-storey car park into a multi-storey bicycle park, incorporating…The architects working with engineers could realise this vision and set an example with the Drury street car park by accessing EU funding as part of the Green deal project. It would be good to show the possibilities for other multi-storey car parks to adapt to new circumstances.”

The reply from the CEO was positive:

“The E&T Department would be delighted to be involved in the initiative.

“The provision of additional accessible cycle parking is a priority for the City Council.

“The use of a floor of Drury Street car park for this purpose is not a problem.”

Further to this, Councillor Cooney worked with the Embassy of the Netherlands to help initiate a series of three webinars with the Dutch Cycling Embassy on Sustainable Cycling Infrastructure in Ireland.

The first took place last Thursday on the theme of Bicycle Parking: Building bike parking facilities and successful integration with public transport; It included contributions from Dublin City Brendan O’Brien, Head of Technical Services, he informed the 200 participants of progress by Dublin City Council in approaching multi storey car parks to re-imagine space for bicycle parking. https://youtu.be/IMQjisCdQjI