For a city driven by bikes, it is a wonder that we don't have updated or even sufficient parking facilities. The message is: take your bike everywhere, just don't leave it behind. With so many of us, you can imagine the mess we get into sometimes. What are we to do? Cyclists will always take a cue from the infrastructure, and in the absence of that, follow the intricate and oddly predictable patterns of those already parked.
It can get pretty desperate, especially around train and metro stations, or at home where the cars get all the parking space. Leaving cyclists (the majority, mind you) cramming our bikes up the wall, taking up precious sidewalk space. No way would anyone consider substituting every fourth car parking space with bike parking, giving room for 8-10 people, over just one. There is simply no way. Even if you only have to look to a city like Amsterdam to see that it works. And, there you offer people a bike rack they can bolt their bikes to at night, not the flimsy useless Copenhagen front wheel parking rack that belong in another century.
Recently we learned that the government plans to allow the city to remove bikes parked "wrong". As it is now, they can't. The city spokesperson is excited, yay, getting rid of bikes. All the while conveniently ignoring that no option was provided to park it right in the first place. A logistical nightmare.
You get a feeling that the politicians don't live in the real world. Like they don't know what it is like to have (and rely on) a bike, with nowhere to park it. Maybe it's because the bike parking facilities for the Parliament look like this:
The Parliament is closed for the summer, making for some nice and clutterfree shots.
Is it too much to hope for that the planners would consult actual bike users, from the real world? Or would that make to much sense? Mr. Colville from Copenhagenize calls it cyclist harrassment. I couldn't agree more.