4 Questions to all commuters

[wongdin]

Hi there, I'm actually a student from Melbourne, Swinburne here I got 4 questions to ask all of the cyclist who ride bike to work.
I'm doing a group proposal about bike parking station to be established in Melbourne, just like the cycle2city in brisbane.
your contribution would be very much appreciated.

~~~~~~~~Just take you 1 min to answer~~~~~~
1) How would you rate safety of bicycle parking facilities that you normally use
(1, 2, 3, 4, 5)
not safe very safe
2) Do you have a difficulty to find a bike parking in CBD during peak hours?
Yes/No
3) Would you be interested in a yearly membership to use facilities (storage/secured bike parking) if it cost you less than a monthly ticket? If interested,
how long you would prefer? more discount offer if u choose a longer membership period.
3 days trail/a month/3 month/6 months/a year
NOt interested
4) Out of these facilities which do you find the most difficult to look for ? give 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 to each item
Shower room
Storage/locker
secure bike parking
changing room
repair workshop
ironing/washing services

It's really generous for you to take the survey, thanks very much

[gdt]

1) How would you rate safety of bicycle parking facilities that you normally use
(1, 2, 3, 4, 5)
not safe very safe
2) Do you have a difficulty to find a bike parking in CBD during peak hours?
Yes/No
3) Would you be interested in a yearly membership to use facilities (storage/secured bike parking) if it cost you less than a monthly ticket? If interested,
how long you would prefer? more discount offer if u choose a longer membership period.
3 days trail/a month/3 month/6 months/a year
NOt interested
4) Out of these facilities which do you find the most difficult to look for ? give 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 to each item
Shower room
Storage/locker
secure bike parking
changing room
repair workshop
ironing/washing services

1. 5. Parking is very safe, because it is at my desk. Somewhat contrary to the OHAS rules of the uni. I use this because the approved parking has a high rate of theft, although it has good personal safety (which did you mean by 'safe' btw, safe for bikes or safe for people?).

2. Yes. When I cycle into the CBD there's precious few places to leave $2,500 of bicycle.

3. I assume you mean a monthly bus ticket? That's about $120pm. That is at once too much and too little.

CBD space of the quality you want leases for about $200-$300/sq.m/year, so the space costs alone for a bike park are around $400pa. So for a sole lease of a bike park you are charging far too little. Equally, as owner of a $400pa bike park, you only need to sell it 100 times at $4ea to break even, making $120 far too much.

You've also missed why some employers are interested in encouraging cycling. I work for a uni, and every bike rider is a boon. Let's create a big bike cage, say equivalent to five car parks. You now have five less parking spaces. Let's say that 50 people use the bike park each day. You now have reduced the parking pressure by 50 spaces. So a big win. Now let's try and charge out that $3500 worth of space to the roughly 250 people who will have asked for access to the bike cage. That's roughly $140ea. Students are very price sensitive, so they aren't going to pay that in a lump sum. So you've just shot yourself in the foot, because now you've discouraged them from cycling and re-established a demand for $140,000 of car parking space. Just suck up the $3500, perhaps charge a nominal fee so people don't lose the keys.

The basic problem is that charging a small casual rate for access to a bike park is desirable --- $2 per park would cover your costs --- but no one has yet come up with an efficient way to do that. Converting the daily rate into a lump sum is one way to get that efficiency, but many cyclists are very sensitive to lump sum payments, and so those lump sum schemes see very little demand.

On the flip side, as long as costs are sucked up and bike parking is free, it is difficult to get the ongoing funds to maintain and enhance the facility. Which explains why bike parks are the poor cousin of car parks. Where this isn't so, such as the bike parks near the JR rail stations in Japan, the bike parks are marvellous.

4.
Shower room - 3 somewhat difficult, there are a limited number of showers.
Storage/locker - 1 not difficult, my desk has a file drawer.
secure bike parking - 4 difficult
changing room - 1 not difficult, my workplace has a clean washroom.
repair workshop - 1 not difficult, there are plenty of bike shops in the CBD.
ironing/washing services - 1 not difficult, there are plenty of laundromats in the CBD.

You may gather from the somewhat cynical tone of my answer that I disagree with the premise of your question. I do think workspaces should provide showers, bike parking, and storage for personal effects. But repair workshops and provision for ironing is well beyond what is reasonable.

Just imagine a repair workshop. Now before we can let anyone use it they'll need to do the OHAS course on safe handling of hand tools. We'll, that cuts out everyone but the property staff and engineering academics, and hey, they have their our own workshops already.

We've got students who believe that putting bread into a microwave and setting the timer to 30 minutes will eventually result in toast. Of course it doesn't, it results in a fire. Now I'll lay money that we get a flood within a month of installing a washing machine. As for an iron, I can think of two student residences completely destroyed by students' attempts at ironing. Now you may thing that students are at an extreme end of stupidity, but I'm told that they all did rather well at their HSC and are in fact the clever half of the population.

Really, there are commercial service which fix bikes and which iron clothes. Both at competitive rates. Why on earth would a workplace want to do anything but -- at most -- simplify access to those existing services. When there is enough demand the services will appear. There is, after all, a commuter-oriented bike shop in the concessions (commercial leased space) at Melbourne Uni.

[Nate]

Slightly OT - but relevant...

If they allow people/companies to put in car parks in the city, then they're contributing to the problem of overcrowding, so bring in a new rule to have 1-5% of their car spaces reserved for cyclists & put in some amenities.

Q's (i'm in Sydney BTW)

#1: 5 (next to my desk in the office) & there's parking in the car park downstairs
#2: no
#3: no need as my building has it, might be interested depending on price
#4: not sure how to rate these, as some i dont desire at all - so havent looked for them.

[simonn]

Hi there, I'm actually a student from Melbourne, Swinburne here I got 4 questions to ask all of the cyclist who ride bike to work.

<pedant mode="grammar nazi">
I have four questions I would like to ask of...
</pedant>

I think you are perhaps asking the wrong people. I think not having shower/washing facilities and secure parking is what puts off people who would otherwise commute by bike. Ergo, a good percentage of cycle commuters either already have these facilities or do not think them necessary.

EDIT: oops...

1) How would you rate safety of bicycle parking facilities that you normally use
4

2) Do you have a difficulty to find a bike parking in CBD during peak hours?
Like a lot of people I do not work in "the CBD" (despite IIRC it being in the top 6 CBDs in Australia). However, my office has underground secure-ish parking with several bike racks.

3) Would you be interested in a yearly membership to use facilities (storage/secured bike parking) if it cost you less than a monthly ticket? If interested,
how long you would prefer? more discount offer if u choose a longer membership period.

Not interested. I'd figure out some way to deal with the issues, e.g. cheap disposable-on-theft bike, ride slower so I do not sweat, spnge off in bathroom etc.

4) Out of these facilities which do you find the most difficult to look for ? give 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 to each item

None of them difficult apart from ironing (not-required) and workshop (not-required).

[Kev365428]

This topic moved to the Commute section where it is more suited.

Kev.

[Dial]

1. 3
2. NA
3. Monthly to start
4. All would be great.
Shower and change in one private space must have 5.
Locker to hang cloths, towel, bike gear must have 5.
The others would be nice to have but not essential 3.
French maid ironing service not essential but very very nice
Massage service (of the therapudic type) would definately be a nice have

If you're serious I'd approach council. I'm sure they would try and assist, cheap rent etc.

[wongdin]

wow... thank you very much for all of your replies!~~~~~~~ really appreciate to all of ur informations

"Ergo, a good percentage of cycle commuters either already have these facilities or do not think them necessary."
um...interesting point...

n thanks to gtd, i wld look up more abt wot u suggest~